Would the six NGOs who feel hard done-by because their own tactics have been used against them please clarify what they’re on about? I only ask because on a significant number of occasions, I, both in this guise and wearing my Beck hat, have been accused of denying people their right to have an opinion, simply because I have an opinion about their opinion and I express it.

So I think I can be forgiven for wondering whether I’m one of the nasty people who harass the poor dears who make up these NGOs.

Am I, for daring not to kow-tow to the (some of whom are only so-called) pro-environmentalists, in breach of the Aarhus Convention too? Am I going to be dragged before some sort of administrative tribunal, accused of lese majeste’ because I am critical of some of the positions taken and the methods used by some of the NGOs or their component members?

It’s also necessary for the NGOs to clarify what they’re implying vis-à-vis MEPA.

I hold no brief for this august institution, which can stick up for itself quite adequately, but it’s concerning that the NGOs are whining about the fruits of MEPA’s transparency in making available so much information on-line.

What is this, double standards or something? Is it OK to use MEPA’s web-site to dig up stuff on Victor Scerri or some other politician, but not OK for the same information to be accessed by people like Dr Scerri? Is it only legitimate for the NGOs to have an opinion or to use facts as they want to use them?

To take the NGOs’ whine at face value, it is not equally legitimate for us, in the blogosphere or merely as members of the commentariat, to have an opinion of our own or seek to use facts as we please.

It’s fine if you agree with Ms Vella or the other newly canonised members of the new religion, you can screech and wail and obstruct all you like. But woe betide you if you dare raise your head above the parapet and venture the thought that maybe all is not as black and white as all that.

Cast your minds back to the St John’s Project.

I, whether in my Beck column or this blog I do not recall, had said simply that – just maybe – it would have been appropriate to wait and see what the relevant experts had to say about the project before stamping our little, elegantly-shod, feet and demanding that the whole thing be moth-balled, otherwise we’ll hold our breath and go all red in the face, so there.

I had not advocated that the project goes ahead willy-nilly, or even ventured any thoughts about the appropriateness or otherwise of the thing. I didn’t know enough then to have an opinion – in fact, I don’t even know enough now, because the net effect of Astrid Vella’s obstreperousness combined with spoilt back-benchers and political opportunists to ensure that the project was still-born.

Some genius, meanwhile, had found out that I sometimes offer professional services to the people who run St John’s – not in any area connected with the project, of course, but the aforementioned genius managed to turn this irrelevant fact into a hue and cry about my objectivity and, consequently, fitness to comment.

You see how these people argue? They are always right, anyone who does not agree with them completely and utterly and unquestioningly is always wrong, and there’s an end to it. If you argue that facts should be examined by experts, you’re told that the experts are venal or biased or whatever.

That’s unless they’re the NGOs’ experts, of course, in which case they’re imbued with scriptural qualities and their words are writ in gold. And you’re also informed, generally in the same breath, that MEPA is working overtime to discredit the NGOs, as if they don’t do a good enough job on their own with the hysteria they employ.

Come on people, we need NGOs that act as watchdogs and keep developers on the straight and narrow, but this constant bitchin’ and moaning that the everyone is out to get you all the time is getting a bit tedious.