As the Brother Grim(a) and his little friends were spluttering about venomous blogs, poisonous comments and sundry other diversions, I was watching an excellent programme by Melvyn Bragg about class. It was preferable to taking in the duplicity of standards being demonstrated some by Grima's guests, although I knew I'd get a mention. I exclude from this, naturally, the poor sod who got invited on to achieve "balance", he was drowned out as usual.

You may ask why I think there were double standards on view?

Well, if you have the energy, rake up a copy of KullHadd and take a look. Any old copy would do, particularly if it has something by "Marija l-Maws" in it. And take a look, while you're about it, at maltastar.com in any of its incarnations. The man responsible for these was perorating along with his little buddies on Grima's show.

Fair comment of mine, or what?

Grima's guests, I'm told, failed to mention that leader of venomous rubbish, tasteyourownmedicine.com, which of course had nothing to do with the Labour Party and was not run by anyone within its ranks or with its blessing. It used to be a favourite site for certain people to link to, before it went belly up. I'm also told that the crawling comments - again, nothing to do with Labour, of course - were positively brimming with hatred.

Labour's mouthpieces were given a convenient peg on which to hang their hats, this week.

That specimen who is contesting for the Sliema Local Council on the PN ticket, Julian Galea, having made the most moronic of comments, was allowed to stay on the ticket because he apologised. One must hope that Sliema's voters will show what they think of that particular decision but in the meantime, this twit serves as a rod with which backs are beaten.

That being said, Labour just don't get it, though, do they? I speak only for myself, but efforts such as Grima's programme simply do nothing to persuade me that I should stop a) having an opinion and b) expressing it.

That sort of intimidation went out in 1987, even though it did little to deter us before that. Now all we are getting is irritating posturing by people whose credentials to talk about proper political writing are tenuous, to put it charitably.

I will not take lessons in what to think and how to express myself from the likes of Evarist Bartolo or Mark Montebello or, for that matter, that Pullicino Orlando fellow, who seems to think he stands for everything liberal and progressive and then starts stamping his little foot every time anyone writes anything about him that is anything other than fawning and brown-nosing.