Michael Southgate takes Giovanni Bonello to task for writing “the usual anti-British dialogue”. (The Sunday Times of Malta, June 30).

Southgate need not take offence especially since he admits that Londoners in that period also endured poverty. Even so, two wrongs never make a right.

As regards Bonello’s claims, these were not really his – they can be found in the official records the British meticulously left behind. All this evidence is available at the archives in Rabat.

Southgate refers to what the Victorians did for Malta. Please remind us Maltese what this consisted of? I know they placed Queen Victoria’s statue in a prominent Square in Valletta, having replaced the statue of a patriot, Manoel de Vilhena, who built the Ospizio in Floriana as a place of shelter for the poor. The fortifications called the Victoria Lines were originally the Maltese means of defence against pirates and other marauders. They consisted of a natural fault stretching from east to west across the island.

The British took them over as they did so many other places. Queen Victoria, therefore, has nothing at all to do with the heritage of Malta.