You have to admit that Doctor Alfred Sant (remember him?) is a master of words, which is hardly a revelation given that he's a Labour politician and that particular genus is a fine exemplar of barrack-room lawyering of the first order.

You know, if it isn't illegal, it's fine and dandy, let Ministerial ethics go hang and Ian Borg cling on to his job.

So according to Alfred Sant, as reported in this portal this morning, he was never against the European Union. He was just, unless we're re-writing history in the usual Labour fashion and leading up to a revelation that it was Labour that got us into Europe despite Premier Joe's kicking and screaming on the "NO!" side, against Malta joining.

He was, consequently, against Maltese citizens getting the benefit of European Union membership, though his qualms about the benefits of said membership seem to have stopped short of putting himself forward for election to the European Parliament and the assorted goodies that go with it.

At the time of joining, I clearly recall that over and above the economic arguments, there were some very cogent socio-political arguments: the protections to your average citizen offered by membership in the EU far outweighed any transient economics-based worries, worries that did not translate into negative results anyway, as it turned out.

So Doctor Alfred Sant, as he used to be referred to breathlessly by the hacks at Super One, amongst them none other than our esteemed Premier Joseph, saying that he was not against the EU but only against Malta joining really does smack, as I tweeted earlier (if Premier Joe can tweet, so can I) of Kim il Sung not being against human rights, just against North Koreans having them.

Doctor Alfred Sant went on, in the interview quoted, to justify his position back then by wondering aloud whether we wouldn't have achieved the same results had we not been members of the EU.

OK, fine, that sort of argument would work, you have to assume, with the sort of people who - after almost 36 months of Labour trough-diving - still think Premier Muscat's bunch of clowns are the best thing since sliced bread, but could Doctor Alfred Sant please credit us with a modicum more intelligence than that?

His argument, if that sort of twisted logic can be called an argument, can be used to argue that if he had been entrusted with the management of the country in 1996, economic and political chaos would have ensued.

No, wait, he was entrusted with managing the country in 1996, wasn't he, so it's not even hypothetical?

In Maltese we have a great kiss-off to people like Sant, "hallina, tridx?" It doesn't translate too well, a wet raspberry being the closest I can think of just now.