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That squall in a thimble that Sant cooked up has died down. All he could come up with as a follow-up, for pity's sake, was the fact that the Health Ministry had - in 2005 or two years ago - submitted a report to the Great Talking Shop in Brussels that said something about health care being funded by "miscellaneous fees". So, the proof of some heinous plot to charge people for health-care lies in a memo that was shot down before the Cabinet even laid eyes on its contents and a response by the Health Ministry to one of the million and three questions Brussels delights in asking.

According to Labour's panting spinners, the fact is that, for a couple of seconds there, it looked as if Gonzi had been caught with his pants down. The thing is, unfortunately for Sant, the truth of the matter is that no sooner had the memo approached being considered for putting on the agenda for discussion that it was chucked out.

Let's be clear: even if the paper was placed in the Cabinet's board-pack and dismissed without discussion of its merits, this does NOT mean that the proposal was discussed. I've participated in meetings where ideas where put forward and shot down in flames within seconds, and I can tell you, this does not constitute discussion. And nor does a Ministerial response to Brussels constitute Government policy: not by the longest of long shots, which are the only sort of shots makers of cheap arguments and producers of tawdry billboards make.

These sad facts, of course, are not entirely convenient for Labour's orchestra of pro and semi-pro spinners, who have made themselves giddy with delight at the thought that they've got Gonzi over a barrel. According to them, the man lied and, heinous crime to cap all crimes, about health care, to boot.

Now, even if, for a mad minute, you take Labour's spin at face value (which is a leap and a half and no mistake) the "lie", so-called, was about whether the proposal was even discussed. No-one seriously thought the measure would be introduced and the whole idea was deep-sixed in seconds flat.

It is generally barrack-room lawyers and particularly obnoxious shop stewards who latch onto irrelevant details, even when (especially when, actually) they are imaginary, as in this case. It's for nothing that you point out, entirely reasonably, that the point being made has absolutely NOTHING to do with the real issue under discussion, in this case whether there's any chance that there will have to be payment for health services.

Just in case you've missed the point, such is the fog of obfuscation that Sant's conveniently obtuse position has created, there is to be no such payment and nor will there be while Gonzi is PM. Unlike when Sant had that nifty wheeze to slap 50c (real cents, not these itty bitty Eurocents) on every prescription. That, according to Labour's spinners, was a great and noble gesture. It was not a "discussion paper" for Cabinet, written about by civil servants seeking to place all possible options before their Ministers. If you want to know how policy is made by Sant, ask Lino Spiteri about the whole VAT - VA + CE = No more cash registers debacle.

Without even a trace of irony these same spinners are now dumping on Gonzi for having had the temerity to throw out a similar idea without discussing it and for telling us that this is what happened.

SO SAID SAID

I'm not sure it's seen the light of day, and I'm not sure it deserves to, but that Jo Said bloke circulated an email he sent to the Commissioner of Police, asking him to take steps against someone for assaulting him (Said) in Heathrow. The email went on about other things and it went to quite a few media folk here and, believe it or not, the BBC, CNN and Sky News. This is the point where bad American stand-up comments would ask whether Said had forgotten to take his pills, and the badly recorded canned laughter would kick in.

Truly, this election has brought the mildly delusional out of the woodwork with a vengeance. First we had the AzzNazz mistaking the son and heir to all my debts for a secret policeman, then we had that Lowell person presenting himself as a candidate and now, to cap it all, the MLP's hero and a self-confessed AD supporter has made it clear that he thinks that the world's major news agencies are interested in his (imaginary?) tribulations.

There's a telling aphorism in Maltese: ghidli ma' min taghmilha u nghidlek x'int. A couple of days ago, there was a picture doing the rounds of Alfred Sant getting really buddy-buddy with Jo Said, who really has become a poster-boy for the Anti-Nationalists.

Do you get my drift?

DEAR J-R

In an exchange that followed my previous blog, J-R Zammit admitted that the reality of the situation is that AD are not likely to get a seat in the House. He admitted this by implication, for far be it from ardent supporters of the "third way" (remember Blair?) to admit that reality bites. The stars in their eyes prevents them from seeing the writing on the wall.

He also said that "blaming the green voters for their choice smacks of arrogance and 21st century electoral bullying". Who the heck has blamed "green" voters? If he had bothered to read what I've written previously, in both my incarnations, he would have noted the statement that genuine greens voting for the greens, for all the poignancy of their gesture, are perfectly entitled so to do. It is the people who vote for them to "teach the Nats a lesson" or "because we need a change" at whom I point a finger.

These people should have the moral courage to vote MLP and be done with it. By wasting a vote on AD, the only change they're going to get is from PN to MLP and trying to teach the PN a lesson by not voting for them but not having the conscience to vote MLP (and for good and sensible reasons, let me say) is only going to get them what they don't want to vote for in the first place.

The arrogance, with all due respect, comes from people who have got it into their heads that we need a change and that the only way to get it is to make futile gestures and make high-sounding remarks. They might not even have to live with the change their noble aims are threatening to produce.

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