True to form, The Times cannot help depicting the Labour Party in a negative sense, every time. In one way or another, The Times criticises the Nationalist government, no matter how weakly it does so. True to form, the editorial of April 12 says that “the Labour Party is already exacting every ounce of political mileage it can get out of the (fuel) price rises”.

Why should the PL not do that? As the opposition, that is its duty to do, for which The Times criticises it. Then the editorial adds: “At the same time it (the PL) fails to give a convincing clue as to how it would tackle the situation in the event that the electorate decides to put it in power at the next election.”

Why should the PL give any clues as to what it might have up its sleeve? At least just now, before an election date has been announced?

When Dom Mintoff got cheap fuel from Libya what did the PN do? It ridiculed the Libyans, instead of thanking them for their generosity. The Libyans were tal-ħabbażiż, we were told. Their newspaper was full of ridicule for the helpful Libyans.

It is beyond me to reason out why the PN treated the Libyans differently from the Italians. When the PN big heads (including Eddie Fenech Adami, the late Ċensu Tabone, the late Guido de Marco, Ugo Mifsud Bonnici and others) went to Aldo Moro, as Prof. de Marco revealed not ages ago, to ask him to stop Italian financial help to Mr Mintoff’s Malta, the so-called Nationalists kept the matter hush hush and did not berate the Italians in public. Much less did they ridicule them.