Lino Spiteri wrote a piece a few days ago bringing, in his own words, the current political situation into context.

Referring to Joseph Muscat's canard that the situation now is comparable to 1981, which is as gross as saying that public broadcasting today is the same as it was in the Eighties (quote Franco Debono), Mr Spiteri wrote:

"The comparison does not hold. On several counts. This government was elected with a relative majority, if a very slim one exceeded by the combined votes of the Labour Party and Alternattiva Demokratika. In 1981 the Nationalist Party received an absolute majority of votes, but a minority of parliamentary seats."

The learned gentleman is, of course, perfectly correct. Leaving aside Labour's mass-hysteria (the poor souls are so, so disappointed that their leader's gagging enthusiasm for the keys to Castille) and poor attempts at humour (check out Helena Dalli's Facebook page for instance) we don't actually have a crisis.

Sure, thanks to Labour's refusal to pair MPs, sittings are now only held when the Government's full team is in play, and there's a nagging doubt about the Government's survival in the longer term, for obvious reasons, but the country is toddling along, keeping its head above the water, which is no mean feat in the circumstances surrounding us.

Of course, to hear Labour's chorus warbling away at every opportunity, we're on the brink of the abyss, about to take a step into the dark. It's so painfully clear that we're not, especially for those of us who lived in this land when we really were looking into the void, that it would be laughable, were it not for the fact that these guys represent - give or take - half the country.

And Spiteri makes up, in his piece, for his opening salvo at Muscat by trying to make everything look as if it was the Nationalists' fault even back in 1981. With an expertise matched only by the skill he showed in his biographical treatise of some months ago (his book) when he managed to portray Mintoff's government in the Eighties for all the world as if he were a million miles from it, he tracks the history of gerrymandering in this fair state back in time, managing to make Labour's defiance of the majority in the 1981 - 87 period seem as nothing compared to the way the PN didn't, in fact, manage to pull of the same stunt.

It's amazing, really, how what Labour did, for five years and a bit, clinging for dear life to the seat of power, becomes insignificant, when seen from Labour's rose-tinted specs, compared to what the Nationalists might have done had things been different. As the man says, if my granny had wheels, she'd have been an omnibus.

Spiteri gives us a number of object lessons in how to re-interpret events.

One of his best efforts is this:

"Still, between 1976 and 1981 the Nationalists offered the most negative form of opposition ever seen in Malta. In due course, a bombing campaign began, targeting government buildings and individuals who helped the MLP to govern."

And there you have it: soon we're going to have people tell us that it was the MLP that got us into Europe and that Muscat led the campaign "IVA".

If those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, what about those who willfully distort it?