Minister Helena Dalli has been the ‘toast of the town’ these past few days when she stuck up for her chief of staff, Ronnie Pellegrini, and tried to interpret what Mr Pellegrini said on Facebook in a less harming way.

Let us go over the story bit by bit.

I-news carried a story quoting Dennis Tanti who claimed that Labourite workers are preferred at St Vincent de Paule Residence for the Elderly.

The minister’s chief of staff, Ronnie Pellegrini, added his own take to the post: “Hekk ghandu jkun” (That’s how it should be)

The inference is crystal-clear, understood by one and all: Mr Pellegrini was saying that it is right that Labourite workers should be preferred.

That is after all what Mr Pellegrini and all those who date from the Mintoff times profess and do on a day by day basis.

But the minister had a very different interpretation.

Dr Dalli insisted that Mr Pellegrini was instead speaking about Family Minister Michael Farrugia’s proposed investigation into the claims.

In comments to The Malta Independent, Minister Dalli did not for a second accept the clear and widespread interpretation of her Chief of Staff’s comment, “Hekk ghandu jkun!” (That’s how it should be!) directly under the headline of an article he posted on Facebook with the headline, “Jghid li haddiema Laburisti huma ppreferuti f’San Vincenz” ([Denis Tanti] says that Labourite workers are preferred in St Vincent).

In her comments, Dr Dalli said that she read the online article saying that Dr Michael Farrugia would be investigating the allegations being made by Denis Tanti, the ex-advisor to St Vincent De Paul Hospital’s CEO, Josianne Cutajar.

When it was insisted by this newsroom that the comment related to preferential treatment, and not the investigation, Dr Dalli interjected, “According to whose interpretation?”

You don’t have to be an expert to realize this is special pleading. The minister turned herself into a laughing stock when she said that and each time she repeats it, as she did until yesterday, her stock of fame dwindles and dwindles.

Of course, in a sense, the minister could not do otherwise. Here was the minister for equality who boasts that through her action gays and other minorities now enjoy full equality. She could not admit that in Malta of 2016 gays may be equal to straights but Labourites and Nationalists are not equal at all.

No amount of special; pleading by the minister can erase this stark fact. We know this is the way things are run in Malta. Actually, we do not need Mr Pellegrini’s rejoinder, nor do we need Mr Tanti’s claim. We know it is true because this is something we live day after day.

We also know the cover-up put up by Labour supporters who claim the ministries are still fully staffed by Nationalist supporters and that therefore following a change of government all PN supporters must be silenced or kicked out and Labour supporters let in to take their place. We know this is specious reasoning that unsatisfied Labour supporters keep making so that they can get a leg in, or a promotion, and see some poor guy elbowed out.

We can see this happening as we have seen it ever since March 2013 in the Army, in the police, and in so many other places. You are due for a promotion not because you are competent but because you are Labourite. You will not get the promotion you desire not because you are not competent but because you are Nationalist.