HISTORY, A LA CARTE

OK, it's time to annoy Mintoff's faithful again and prick some more holes in their delusions about his attributes as a substitute for St Francis. On second thoughts, let's not, let's instead annoy just Mr Joe Grima, always assuming he deigns to read this. I'm pretty sure some minion, domestic or professional, will tell him all about it, anyway.

Succinctly, what was he thinking? In a full blaze of publicity, he told a writer, who also happened to be a priest, writing in the Catholic Herald, amongst other things, to eff off and if he didn't know how to take lessons from those associated with pedophilia. This was because the priest wrote a strongly worded column about Mintoff, a column which truth be told reflects very accurately what many, including me, think is the truth about him.

That Grima was behaving like a boorish, bullying oaf with a priest is immaterial: he could have addressed his spittle-laden rant to anyone, it would still have been equally loutish, if unremarkable. From some people, you expect little more than what they will unfailingly deliver.

Grima was given a back-page slot on the Times, after having been asked whether he would apologise for his low outburst (and having refused) and true to Labour form, he proceeded to re-write history, both recent and less fresh.

According to Grima, he told Lucie-Smith (the priest) where to get off in no uncertain terms, playing down his thuggish behaviour (as he's always done, I suppose) and making the whole thing look like a gentlemanly, if robust, expression of ideas, rather than what it really was. Par for the course, that, with a certain type, which we all come across: vulgarity, shouting and bullying become camouflaged, when examined later, as strength and forcefulness, which is nothing less than a downright lie.

And if Grima objects to the use of the word "lie" in his regard, it'll be a first as far as I am concerned, as I've directed it towards him before this and he appears not to have been worried.

The whitewashing continued throughout the piece, needless to say, with Mintoff and his methods being classified as "debatable", as if there's any debate to be had about behaviour that - well, when you think about it - was the same as that resorted to by Grima himself, microcosmically, in his outburst about the Catholic Herald piece.

What a way to run a country, for the sake of all that's beautiful.