In his article, Lino Spiteri considered the significance of the March 31 national holiday, termed "Freedom Day".

Most would consider freedom to be the innate right people have to choose those who govern them.

In 1981, two years after what according to the Socilalists was a momentous watershed event, the people of Malta in their absolute majority voted to get rid of the Socialists.

What did the Socialists, including Mr Spiteri who was then a senior party and government member, do?

They remained in power against the will of the absolute majority of the people till the very last day allowed them by the Constitution.

Not only that, but they governed in a most brutal of fashions. A fashion not latterly experienced, not even when Malta was under the "occupiers" that we were supposed to have been freed from by those intrepid Socialists two years earlier.

So the "occupiers" left when asked to, while the "liberators" stayed on when shown the door by the people.

Perhaps, Mr Spiteri should forget all the rhetoric and consider what type of freedom Malta gained in 1979, when two years later the Maltese had to endure a government it did not vote for.

Could it be that the real Freedom Day for Malta was in May 1987, when the Maltese managed, after a painful five and half years, to finally boot the Socialists out of office?