It is strange that it had to be the Nationalist Party’s general secretary Paul Borg Olivier, who called for the resignation of Alex Sceberras Trigona as international secretary of the Labour Party.

For it was Dr Sceberras Trigona, foreign minister in the Labour government of 1981-87, who had succeeded in establishing very friendly and close diplomatic relations with Col Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan government or regime, if you will.

As a direct result of those relations, Dr Sceberras Trigona had succeeded in negotiating an agreement which benefited Malta immensely – Libyan oil at a very discounted price – which saved Malta millions of Maltese liri.

By the way, it was also DrSceberras Trigona, together with then Prime Minister Dom Mintoff, who negotiated the financial protocol with the Italian government, as a result ofwhich Malta started receiving around Lm10 million to Lm12 million a year.

This ‘one-way’ cash flow kept coming our way right up to the day Malta joined the EU.

So my final comment is that it is Dr Borg Olivier who should have resigned a long time ago after the many gaffes he committed from the first few days as his party’s general secretary.