As expected, with the monotony of a banging tin drum, Martin Scicluna has yet again dedicated most of his column inches to another harangue aimed at me. His Labour-driven, misogynistic, one-man crusade is getting to be old hat, but now I know exactly what it feels like to be one of Cervantes’s windmills in Don Quixote.

This time round, he has thrown David Casa into the mix, and taken it upon himself to advise PN voters on their ballot choices. Arrogant to put it mildly. I look forward to his contribution next week, when he will be expected to perform the same insightful and objective exercise advising Labour voters on how they should vote. I am sure that he has an opinion to give there as well, unless he considers all candidates under the Labour flag, even those sporting criminal convictions, to be worthy of his endorsement.

In his one gentlemanly line, he wishes me good things for a lengthy future, although I suspect that there might have been some underlying sarcasm even there, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, shall we?

I reciprocate the sentiment expressed and wish him the same epiphany that Don Quixote had in his twilight years, when our antihero awakes from a dream, renounces all his previous ambitions (including equating himself with Pope Francis) and apologises for the harm he had caused. Don Quixote was misguided and obsessed, but one thing he was not was a mercenary.   

I shall not deviate any more of Mr Scicluna’s attention away from his “eight-hour day, six days a week” work (working on the empty campus of the American University of Malta no doubt), but I have one thing that I want him to understand very clearly. Cervantes has his windmills going about their daily business notwithstanding Don Quixote’s obsessive tilting.

Should I be trusted and elected again by those discerning voters who choose to decide for themselves, rather than follow Mr Scicluna’s advice, I shall continue to discharge all my duties faithfully and steadfastly.  I will do my duty, and just like the windmills, I shall not be moved one inch from my obligation to work on behalf of all Maltese and Gozitans, including Mr Scicluna himself should the need arise.

He is also a Maltese citizen, with all the appertaining rights, and not just someone’s mouthpiece.