John Consiglio thinks he has the answer to the issue of vacant properties. Tax the owners! Even if they are usually the victims of our archaic rent laws that have plagued property owners for 75 years and still counting.

He dismisses correspondents Joe Izzo and Frans Said, and Edwin Vella before them, with his “final word”. Roma locuta est. I am reminded of an episode on the Gozo ferry before one of the first post-war elections, when a communist propagandist was haranguing prospective converts.

“When we come to power we will take the fields from the landlords and give them to the farmers.” “Hear, hear” exclaimed a new proselyte.

“And we will take the houses from the landlords and give them to the tenants,” he went on. “Hear, hear,” said the proselyte with greater enthusiasm.

“And we will take the buses from the owners and give them to the drivers.”

“The devil you will!” said the distinctly disillusioned proselyte in very flowery Gozitan.

“Why not?” asked the crest-fallen propagandist.

“Because I own two buses.”

And that, dear Consiglio, is that.