Comparisons are odious

During an interview in The Sunday Times (September 28) Joseph Muscat was asked: "Before coming to Brussels you campaigned strongly against Malta's accession to the EU. Do you admit now that you were wrong?" Dr Muscat replied: "First of all I wasn't alone. There were also others like me who today are very pro-Europe. When Tony Blair entered politics for the first time he campaigned for the UK's withdrawal from the EU. One of the best visionary speeches on Europe I've heard in my four-year stint as an MEP was from Blair".

In the same vein, during a television interview on our national station, Dr Muscat referred to Mr Blair's anti-EU stance alleging that as a candidate in 1983 Mr Blair was routing for the UK to withdraw from the European Union.

I quote what Mr Blair actually said in the "best visionary" speech Dr Muscat referred to, which was delivered to the European Parliament on June 23, 2005: "I am a passionate pro-European. I always have been. My first vote was in 1975 in the British referendum on membership and I voted yes. In 1983, when I was the last candidate in the UK to be selected shortly before that election and when my party had a policy of withdrawing from Europe, I told the selection conference that I disagreed with the policy. Some thought I had lost the selection. Some perhaps wish I had. I then helped change our policy in the 1980s and was proud of that change".

Mr Blair also said that when he was Prime Minister he signed the Social Chapter in 1997 (which was previously opposed by his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher), helped, along with France, to create the modern European Defence Policy, and played his part in the Amsterdam, the Nice and then the Rome treaties. Now, in all honesty, does this sound like a politician who, according to Dr Muscat, was campaigning for the UK's withdrawal from the EU?

More from Mr Blair: "Today, the EU stands as a monument to political achievement. Almost 50 years of peace, 50 years of prosperity, 50 years of progress. Think of it and be grateful". The thrust of Mr Blair's speech was the need for renewal: "The issue is not about the idea of the European Union. It is about modernisation. It is about policy. It is not a debate about how to abandon Europe but how to make it do what it was set up to do: Improve the lives of people". Anything but withdrawing from Europe or abandoning it, wouldn't you say?

For what it's worth, Dr Muscat was perhaps too young to remember what happened in 1975, in 1983 and in 1997 but, when, four years ago, in June 2005, Mr Blair publicly declared his passion for Europe and the British membership, Dr Muscat was supposedly a mature adult sporting a sharp memory. So, I ask, how could he have misunderstood and misinterpreted Mr Blair so very, very badly? What possible motive could he have had to mislead us so completely? Not once but twice in two different interviews!

Dr Muscat and Mr Blair lie poles apart. Mr Blair had the guts to go against the current and publicly declare his disagreement with his party's policy to withdraw from Europe. Dr Muscat, on the other hand, followed the current, advocated his party's policies (Malta à la Suisse and The Partnership) and subscribed staunchly to the "no to Europe" scaremongering campaign.

I don't believe that Dr Muscat is malicious by nature so, giving him the benefit of the doubt, I will ask again: Why cast imaginary shadows on an international figure? Is his memory so frail, so selective? Was this simply a case of being frivolous? If so, how often have Dr Muscat's speeches been laced with such superficial statements?

Mr Blair's concluding words can serve as a lesson to all who are aspiring to a Premiership: "In my time as Prime Minister, I have found that the hard part is not taking the decision, it is spotting when it has to be taken".

Dr Muscat missed the opportunity to take his words back or to come out with some simple justification for such a gigantic misrepresentation of the truth. From this day forth I will only accept his statements with a pinch of salt, if at all!

(The full text of Mr Blair's speech can be read on www.number10.gov.uk/Page7712.)