Consensus, what consensus?

If it weren't so lamentable, it would be laughable! Here's the Nationalist Party - whose senior leaders in Dom Mintoff's time went to Italy to protest with Aldo Moro that Italy was helping Mr Mintoff financially - accusing Joseph Muscat of putting partisan interests ahead of the national interest.

Dr Muscat, a PN statement charged, had violated the national consensus on illegal immigration. Dr Muscat, the PN further charged, had brought politics down to their lowest level!

Now isn't that rich!? What consensus is the PN talking about? The consensus on the immigration and asylum pact, for instance, which Lawrence Gonzi tried to sell to us as a momentous victory, but which the PL immediately saw for the worthless paper that it was?

Europe, so far reluctant to help Malta with its grave immigration problem, had sold Dr Gonzi a pig in a poke. Though Dr Gonzi did not see that he had been tricked, the PL immediately caught on to it - the Europeans are not bound to help you with burden-sharing, the PL pointed out to Dr Gonzi. Burden-sharing is only voluntary, the PL pointed out.

Alas, the PL was so right! Help from Europe on the illegal immigration front was as rare as flies in winter. But the PN went ahead and signed the pact. And it was not long before the worthlessness of the pact became clear, and Justice Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici went to Brussels seeking to make burden-sharing compulsory - as the PL had suggested that burden-sharing should be. Did the PN say the PL had been right? Not on your life!

The government, the PN argued in its statement, has worked tirelessly in the national interest in the illegal immigration sector. That is a blatant lie, if ever there was one. The government has not "worked tirelessly in the national interest". It may have been floundering tirelessly, but certainly not working.

By stubbornly refusing to accept Dr Muscat's urgings against signing the immigration and asylum pact, the Nationalist Party went against the national interest. Dr Gonzi signed the pact with his eyes wide open. And it was not long before it became obvious to us that the pact was not worth the paper it was written on. It is the PN which is hurting the national interest, and which is betraying the national interest, by seeking first the party's interest, ahead of the national interest.

To the PN, its interests come first, Malta's are second - maybe!