So the government wants to do away with the age-old trade unionistic principle of “last in, first out” in the impending cutback of Air Malta’s workforce.

Isn’t the reason obvious? Ever since they came to power in 1987, after years of criticising the national airline for being a hotbed of Labourites, the Nationalists appear to have made sure that most of the new employees in Air Malta were blue-eyed, with just the minimum of Labour sympathisers in order to save face from any charges of political intrigue. So if it’s “last in, first out”, most of those falling under the axe of redundancy would be their own ilk.

There was once an aspiring pilot who was refused employment only over great persistence on the part of somebody close to the government. Talk of lip-service to the importance of the airline’s safety record!

Of course most of the Nationalists employed over the years were decent people who needed a job as badly as Labourites did.

It is the essence of Air Malta’s raison d’être to take people for a ride. But the government’s version of that is much, much more sinister. Soon after the change of government in 1987, when the man who had made fun of Air Malta’s aircraft as “birds of lead” fought so hard to have it under his ministerial control, a Maltese-language paper started attacking Air Malta which had hitherto been the apple of its eyes because it had been started by Labour.

I told that would-be minister that Air Malta was simply a political football, but it was then the second half of the game. The teams had changed ends, but the national airline was still the football in the middle.