The Prime Minister’s gaffe, when he claimed that Joseph Muscat and the Labour Party want to “freeze” the minimum wage, has been rubbished by none other than the general secretary of the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin who stated that both during the PL congress, which he attended, and during all the meetings his union has had with Dr Muscat and the PL, he had never heard Muscat or the PL say that they intended “freezing” the minimum wage.

“Freezing” would mean that even the cost-of-living increase, which is statutory, would no longer be given, which is definitely not the case. But Lawrence Gonzi, hoping to score a cheap point, said that what Muscat had said meant that a future PL government would not even give the cost-of-living increase.

If not raising the basic minimum wage, apart from the cost-of-living increase, Gonzi considers this as “freezing the minimum wage”, then his own and previous Nationalist governments have “frozen” the minimum wage for at least 12 years if not more.

And when boasting that his Government had raised the minimum wage – just by giving the statutory cost-of-living increase – he should have reminded his audience that the increase they had received had been introduced by law by a Labour government!