I read with amazement some of the contents of the article ‘UK government sceptical of Fenech Adami’s Malta’ (The Sunday Times of Malta, August 16).

In the first instance the views and comments in this article are those of deputy high commissioner Peter Marshall, the minute taker of Eddie Fenech Adami’s meeting with junior foreign minister Janet Young, and cannot be described as those of the British government. Indeed, the handwritten notes by minister Young’s staff attached to this record described the meeting as “very useful”.

It is extraordinary that Marshall, who was stationed in Malta during this period, could assert that Fenech Adami’s account of the violent and tense situation prevailing at the time were “wild assertions”.

Was Marshall asleep during months of criminal behaviour by extremists and thugs with the tacit if not blatant support of the police? He too doubts that the result of the 1981 elections were not the result of gerrymandering. Yet, here again in a separate note sent to the minister, the claims of gerrymandering are described as “justified”.

Marshall also says that there was “no hint of differences with the Church” at the time, while the same separate note to the minister speaks of poor relations with the Church “largely of the government’s own doing”.

I can only imagine the minister scratching her head when her man on the spot provided a version of the situation then prevailing in Malta completely at variance with that of officials in London.

The true facts can even today be determined by a quick reference to the articles and photos of the time in all sections of the media (except, of course, those of the government).

Did Marshall perhaps have a personal agenda?