Letters to the editor - November 26, 2025

Best budget or chicken feed?

Eddy Privitera of Mosta writes:

After watching the leader of the opposition’s reply to the budget speech, I came to the conclusion that serious and intelligent voters must be losing heart that the PN can ever return to government.

Alex Borg’s mainly hysterical and inept speech will long be remembered mostly for comparing the €10 per week pension increase, to “half a loaf of Maltese bread with tuna and tomato paste”.

Just as Simon Busuttil is still remembered for his comparison of out-of-stock medicines to out-of-stock tins of peas at a grocery shop.

What Borg read in his prepared speech must have embarrassed serious and intelligent voters.

But it also insulted the intelligence of countless thousands of PN voters who will be benefitting greatly from the myriad of tax cuts and other benefits announced by Finance Minister Clyde Caruana, in the best-ever budget speech to have been delivered in parliament.

In recent letters I warned Borg that politics is not a beauty contest. Nor a walk in the park. But a walk in a minefield.

This is what Borg experienced when the prime minister delivered his reply the following day.

Each argument made by Borg was totally demolished by Robert Abela.

It is enough to summarise Abela’s criticism by mentioning one of the final points raised by him: “The PN was unable to draft and publish a pre-budget document, let alone offer a credible financial path   for the country”.

Finally, may I take this opportunity to thank the finance minister on behalf of thousands of elderly people and their families, for accepting and including in the budget, my suggestion to reduce  care homes payments from pensions.

This reduction is definitely not “chicken feed”.

Stop all the vote-catching

Michael Vella of Sliema writes:

Pensioners received a miserly increase. File photo: Times of Malta

The prime minister had a very interesting interview this weekend, where he underlined future projects and dismissed early elections. And again mentioning the fact that, despite this year’s budget being the best ever, next year’s is going to be better still.

Surely he must have noticed that the increase given to pensioners was a miserly €4.60, plus the cost-of-living adjustment, which turned out to be the lowest increase of the past four budgets.

Let us raise our hopes that, next year, with all the fanfare of greater things to come, pensioners will get an adequate increase to match the high cost of living they are experiencing daily.

It seems that whispers must have reached his ears at Castille that out there things are not as rosy as he wants to make people believe.

Christmas is coming soon, so stop hanging vote-catching presents for the unwary voter.