VENOM AND HATRED

The closer the elections get, the higher the temperature is rising within the PL's core support. This is fuelled by the MLP's palpable collective disappointment consequent on their leader's failure to read the runes and get his opportunistic no-confidence vote through.

I imagine the elections are pretty close, one way or the other (what's thirteen months between friends, at best?) though the calculations the PM will make are his to make and no-one else's, for all the Joseph Muscat seems to think, strangely, that he has a contribution to make here.

As the temperature rises, so does the splutter-quotient within the comments that the PL's keyboard operators make. I wrote "splutter-quotient" to be kind: much of it is either incoherent or poisonous or, very often, both, and the distaste anyone with even an iota of decency feels for them is exacerbated by the inanities with which some of the beetles (new descriptor, goes with Lil'Elves) pepper their comments.

To make matters worse, many of them are incapable of perceiving the truth or the historical facts underpinning that which they are attacking. If you want a saddening, and scary, illustration of this, check out  the comments following the Mintoff story on Daphne Caruana Galizia's blog.

She expressed an opinion on Dom Mintoff in terms that many, in their hearts, do not gainsay, though perhaps not everyone would have used the same strength of language.

The reaction from the beetles, and the use of that word tends to be insulting of beetles, for which I apologise, ranges from outright death threats, to personal insult and curses of every variety right down to school-girl Facebook level squeals.

The language, such as it is, is often incoherent, reflecting an incoherence of thought and blind hero-worship of Mintoff indicative of a thought-process (to the extent that it is a process and not an endocrinological reaction) that has little to do with education and much to do with indoctrination.

Combined with the reactions seen after the no-confidence vote failed to pass and the cries for revenge and retribution that fly around whenever anyone dares express an opinion that is not obsequious to the PL and all its works, it makes you wonder what will happen when Joseph Muscat's dream comes true.