Tomorrow, the Nationalist Party will begin the process to elect a new leader, making this the last day with Dr Lawrence Gonzi at its head.

I have no doubt that the shallow, the twisted, the bitter and the ungrateful will have enormous fun on the comments board below, taking me to task for supporting Gonzi and asking me if I haven't learnt anything from the 36,000 deficit.

No, I have not, because quite simply there is nothing to learn. 

I am proud to have supported Dr Gonzi and I have absolutely no regrets for so doing, however much the smug triumphalists may crow otherwise.  Gonzi took this country successfully through crisis after crisis, even while being tormented by individuals unfit to tie his shoe-laces, much less treat him with the contempt they mustered for him. 

As always, their behaviour made them contemptuous and not their victim, who came out of it defeated at the polls but with his integrity intact, again in sharp contrast to his tormentors.

The Euro-crisis, the North African crisis, the country's overall solidity (now admitted to even by josephmuscat.con) are all testament to the fact that Gonzi was, and when the dust settles, will be judged as, one of the better Prime Ministers we've had.  He's certainly better than that apparently paranoid - if not outright delusional - violence-prone lout described by John Attard Montalto in the Times today.

And if you then compare Gonzi to KMB and Sant, well, why bother?

Gonzi was human and he made mistakes, quite obviously. The mishandled €500 pay-hike that was (almost) given to Ministers, the awkwardness accompanying the introduction of divorce, the way he let the PN go into free-fall as a party (not that this was really his fault, but he carries the can, as leader) are examples of errors which cost him dear.

It's not the time to go over old ground, politics moves on and times change, but this does not mean that a word of thanks would go amiss and when the congenital ingrates chime in with their supercilious remarks, you can make your own comparisons.

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