Flag poll

The poll about the GC on the Maltese flag, carried on timesofmalta.com, is too silly for words. The question is loaded in favour of the affirmative.

Voters cannot be correctly and scientifically sampled. There are Maltese who don't speak English, so the poll is excluding them. There are thousands of Maltese people who speak English but do not have computers. There are thousands of Maltese people who may or may not speak English and may or may not possess computers but do not read The Times.

This poll is easily manipulated - one could send an e-mail link to 100 or 1,000 people and ask them to vote yes or no. Non-Maltese nationals can vote to their heart's content, get their pub mates, tourists, foreign students - anyone - to vote.

The question is worthless without an outline of the controversy surrounding it. For example, this would be a fairer question: The GC, as a medal, was never supposed to go on the Maltese flag or any flag. A colonial British governor drew it on our flag thus defacing our 900-year-old National Flag.

1. Did you know this?

2. Would you like your government to tell the Maltese people more about this issue so the Maltese people may be able to make an informed decision about whether a referendum is required?

This poll is up the pole - a bit like the image of Christ on the Maltese euro poll. That poll proved useless and so will this GC-on-the-flag poll. There is only one poll that counts and that's a referendum.

I, for one, will continue to explain this issue and combat misinformation whenever and however I can.