My Israeli counterpart, Yitzhak Rabin, who was cruelly assassinated in 1995, was far from complimentary when he engaged me in a conversation about Mintoff during one of our meetings.

“He was such a pain in the ass,” Rabin said, “he turned up at every Socialist International meeting and every time he took up the Palestinian cause. He was a real pain in the ass.”

I retorted in jest: “Well, he’s always a pain in the ass, even in Malta.”