So the protest by NGOs about the rape of Villa Rosa was held yesterday week.

The list of organisations which participated in the protest was probably longer than the people who actually went.

These protests which keep being made have a touch of 'déjà vu' about them.

That's because we all know the protests are useless. The rape of Villa Rosa will take place. As did the rape before it of St George's Bay. As will the concurrent rape of Xlendi Bay in Gozo.

There was no need for the developer or the architect or both to provide us with mock-ups to tell us how this new building will look like or even any attempt to tempt us by explaining how the new building will interact with the surrounding environment - the minuscule green patch that surrounds the villa, and of course the bay itself (where the shadow of the new building, we are told, will ensure that a sizeable part of the bay will be perennially in the shade).

There was no need for any of this for the die had already been cast - the permit will be issued on the order of Cabinet.

That's how things are in Malta now. It's the political connection that counts. All the other considerations - land use, or social considerations - for which and more Mepa was set up in the 1990s, are now secondary or even non-existent.

Villa Rosa and Xlendi will thus join the list of other localities that have been irrevocably ruined. And more often than not, by a Labour government.

The PN ones contributed too - the addition of a third floor on all residential units, the infamous 'rationalisation' scheme that joined up and opened entire areas to development.

But it was Labour which created the jumble and chaos that are Bugibba, Marsascala and Paceville. In these three areas a small village was savagely opened up to development with no plan. Such things as infrastructure came in later - if they did. The roads remained narrow and twisting. As for green spaces - forget that.

The only space where development was planned in a rational way was Santa Lucija, on the garden city model for which Labour must take credit.

There was no anger at the protest - rather resignation, sadness. The same faces we have been seeing at so many similar protests - always the same faces we have grown old with.

They've lost the battle and as they look around them they must see the results of so many years of militancy - Malta has become a place one emphatically does not want to live in. The best of our young sense this. The best their parents can wish for them is that they build a life elsewhere. At least membership in the EU comes in handy.

Then there was the protest in the Strangers Gallery at the beginning of the Budget Speech. Again, it was the same hard core, the same small group, and the value of the two-minute protest was symbolical.

It's always development permits, if it's not the birds. Are we sure there isn't anything else to protest about?

In the same weekend a speaker at a Trump rally used the phrase "floating islands of garbage". He was speaking about Porto Rico but are we sure the same phrase does not apply to Malta?

In contrast, find reports on the mammoth Patriots demo in London last Saturday.

You will not find these reports on the BBC or Sky nor on the more than useless TVM. Try YouTube or Google Tommy Robertson and Patriots.

It's not just the massive crowd present but the palpable anger, most of those who attended were male, working class, a category that so far has remained out of the hackneyed political arena of Tories vs Labour.

They want to get Britain back - understand this how you want, categorising it as Right-wing will not hurt it.

It's the anger of the working class rising up and shaking itself free.

The showdown is coming and the future is impossible to predict.

As these coming days may show, it's not just the UK which will see this.

We have exciting days ahead.

[email protected]