So Charmaine Calleja (The Sunday Times, August 19) thinks that Dr Alfred Sant has reinvented himself. Yet he is trying to replicate the period before the 1996 election.

Instead of removing VAT, he is promising to halve the surcharge on water and electricity committing the same mistakes of the past.

The VAT removal played havoc with our economy. His new promise is not followed with a detailed plan of how he intends to offset the gaping hole that such a promise will leave in the nation's finances.

In any case, Dr Sant cannot be believed. He promised the Drydocks no change in the workers' representation back in 1996. He did not keep his promise. He promised no tampering with stipends. He sent students to the banks for loans. He is also engaging in a smear campaign just as he did pre-1996 election. No helipad at Mater Dei, no privacy for mothers who lose their baby - both lies.

He offered solace through his spokesman to the GWU's cruel action against the most vulnerable section of our society. He allowed other Labour spokesmen to use the death of elderly people at St Vincent de Paul Residence for political purposes by claiming that five of them died through heat exhaustion. A blatant lie.

Is this the new Dr Sant? Labour is still stuck in its murky past - hankering for a partnership with the GWU, still holding on the properties that do not belong to it and promising Labourites favoured treatment. And still, after all, sceptical about the people's verdict on EU membership.