Surprisingly, or perhaps not, last week’s column didn’t attract the level of negative online comment it might have. There were a couple, one from a character who tends to demonstrate an obsessive zeal in attacking my ideas, and me, but his motivation is ad hominem and his surname betrays him, so I ignore him.

I wonder why I wasn’t called all manner of names for positing the ideas I posited.

To be clear, I only know I wasn’t called names in the comments because I don’t read the quasi-tabloids like MaltaToday or KullĦadd, so I’ve no idea if I was got at in these august publications. I do know, for instance, that MT’s agenda-setter in-chief saw fit to mention me yet again but I neither know nor care what the content or context was.

Perhaps one of the reasons why I wasn’t qualified as a Nationalist Party brown-nose or a lackey of the ruling class by a bevy of Joseph’s groupies or by a swarm of Lil’Elves was that, verily, my words had much of the truth about them.

If you want confirmation of this, might I suggest you take a look at Lino Spiteri’s Talking Point a few days ago (www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110110/opinion/facing-hard-and-uncertain-times)? You will note a dearth of references to tax cuts, ministers’ €600 pay-hikes and other parochial trivialities.

It has been alleged, in the past, that opinion-makers such as little me and Daphne Caruana Galizia were coordinated by some grey eminence in Castille but this can hardly be said of Mr Spiteri, whose credentials as an eminent gentleman of the Left, who has little love for all things PN, can hardly be gain-said.

In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, Mr Spiteri is never backward in coming forward when it comes to laying it on the line and beating the government around the ears. This having been said, his grasp of matters financial and economic is certainly not that of an amateur – and I know this sounds patronising but I mean it only sincerely.

Unlike many commentators on either side of the divide, I don’t pretend to have any grasp of who is in whose faction within the party structures and when PN spinners write about how this or that grouping within the PL is getting the upper-hand, or vice versa, I tend to reach for some salt and sprinkle a few pinches about.

So was Mr Spiteri’s (perfectly fair) commentary a few days ago simply an objective, technical assessment of the economic situation and the underlying factors thereof or was it a subtle swipe at Joseph Muscat’s clique, the ones for whom economic commentary seems to consist in whining about the (relatively paltry) wage rise the Honourable Ones got?

I would tend towards the former alternative, if only because the political faction with which Mr Spiteri was latterly associated is now above and beyond the political fray.

So it would appear, at least from where I’m sitting, that Mr Spiteri’s analysis is not one that is aimed at doing the nasty at Dr Muscat’s boys (just to remind you, they’re the ones who whinge about the price of bread going up by 4c or whatever – and that’s euro cents). It is simply a dispassionate, objective and informed piece that pulls no punches but does not play to the gallery.

I trust I will be forgiven for lifting a couple of paragraphs directly, because they give you the flavour.

Therefore, I quote: “An acceleration is expected there and it seems we will also be part of that. In large part the cause will be developments in the crude oil price, which spills into derivatives, of gas, and in our supply markets. The cost of food, for instance, is on the up and up, driven by higher cereal prices which have fed into those of staples like meat.

“There is nothing we can do to counter internationally rising prices, except trying to ensure that we purchase our imports as efficiently as possible. Landed here they have to be on-processed, where that applies, and distributed efficiently as well. With the degree of competition that exists in most of the private sector it can be assumed that the price of its products to consumers will be as keen as can be. Otherwise price-conscious consumers will reply by shopping elsewhere,” and I unquote.

Ironically, this sort of thing, coming from the Left as it does, does immeasurably more harm to the Muscat Clan’s credibility than the stuff I write does – what I produce is simply a light-hearted stab at commentary on the comings and goings of the day, whether about the foibles of the honourables or the triumphs and tribulations of Chelsea. I don’t expect to be taken seriously all the time, though when I am tackling serious issues, I hope the message comes across – racists, bigots, fundamentalists and hypocrites please note.

Mr Spiteri, on the other hand, when he’s writing about economics and finance, should not be taken anything but seriously, which takes us inexorably to the conclusion that the validity of his thesis invalidates by contrast the theses of the bunch of amateurs that, in a couple of years, will be trying to convince they can run the country.

imbocca@gmail.com

www.timesofmalta.com/blogs