Marisa Micallef's piece is spot on. She failed to add that some of the land taken by Dom Mintoff's governments to give away at nominal prices has still not been paid for.

The original owners of the land must take legal action to recover the pittance which the Lands Department offers while the houses which have been built on the land accumulate profits of tens of thousands of liri for people who were in the right place at the right time, or perhaps just knew the right people.

Sadly, she couldn't resist a doctrinaire dig at "pro AD economists" who suggest that "everything is the government's fault".

While the government should not control the housing market in a free economy, land-use policies can certainly influence development.

In Britain, at both national and local levels, development policies have resulted in an increase in affordable housing in areas where teachers, police officers, firemen and other average wage-earners previously could not afford to live.

Here, the PA, and subsequently Mepa, were allowed to delay indefinitely the implementation of local plans, the single factor which can most influence the way we live.

You don't need to be an economist, pro AD or otherwise, to conclude that the party which has been in government for 16 of the last 18 years was in the best position to implement policies to achieve these results.