Nothing to smile about for the 30,000

Rachel Cassar, in her letter Who's Smiling Now? (October 25), was right only when she said that "Xarabank was a great eye opener on Friday evening".

This is very true because we were given the opportunity to watch a Prime Minister who was manifestly stale and carrying the same old baggage - including the repetitive, tedious, wide smiles which have now become so past their best that viewers can forecast them minutes away.

In contrast Joseph Muscat was fresh in appearance and delivery and in addition he was also clinical and to the point in his arguments...arguments which forced the Prime Minister to turn to his old-fashioned sermon-like deliveries reminiscent of the old panegyric style homilies.

One of the arguments made by the Prime Minister, which certainly did not bring about any smiles on the faces of the majority of viewers, was when he boasted, in no small way, that his government was being so generous that it was subsidising, from our taxes, the electricity and water bills of more than 30,000 families. Is this really something to boast about? Isn't the fact that more than 30,000 families in Malta and Gozo cannot even afford to pay their electricity and water bills actually something to be ashamed of? Did this declaration by the Prime Minister put a smile on Ms Cassar's face? If it did, it certainly did not bring smiles to the faces of any of the members of those 30,000+ families who cannot afford to pay their bills. Shame that today we are living in a country that has more than 30,000 families below the poverty line.

This is something that should really worry Ms Cassar. There is definitely nothing to smile about this tragic situation!

Does she think that the Prime Minister should continue to splash our TV screens with his usual sarcastic smiles, albeit sometimes verging on the angelic, when he makes such erratic statements?

Ms Cassar's last sentence was: "This time nobody is going to fool us ..." It would have been much more appropriate had she said: "This time nobody is going to fool us ... again".

Yes, Xarabank was a real eye-opener because Dr Muscat gave us all, especially our Prime Minister, a lesson in the new way of doing politics. Keep up the good work Joseph.