There are a number of people including some economists in the Labour camp, who are saying that once our position has been sufficiently consolidated for us to be admitted to the eurozone, we can safely take the risk of electing leaders who propose dangerous economic experiments. You used to argue that a main reason for joining EU was that it was a guarantee against such threats to democracy as we had experienced. Was the idea that a guarantee against economic disaster good ground for seeking membership of the Union?

The problem is that although being in the eurozone does create a distance between ourselves and some aspects of international financial crisis, nevertheless a great deal of prudence and skill is still required for us to steer as safely as possible when there is turbulence in the world economy.

In fact, the measures taken by US President George Bush on January 18 indicate how serious the threat of recession is. No less than 140 billion dollars were allocated in the form of reduced taxation and subsidies to the poorest households in an effort to boost the American economy.

It may also be relevant to recall that the crisis began because of an inflated property market. The bubble burst because of loans given at high interest rates to property buyers without adequate pay-back capacity. The effects have been not only a credit crunch in the US, but have rippled across the world provoking crises of various kinds in Switzerland, the UK, Germany, and France.

The European Central Bank has hitherto been able to ward off catastrophe by flooding the market with liquidities at the critical moment. Of course, it could not prevent inflation rising to above four per cent in the US, nor prevent the human drama of some two million Americans who were thrown out of their homes because of the property market affair.

The problem there has notably struck the automobile sector and it should be obvious that given the openness of our economy, the prospect for us calls for precisely the opposite reaction to that you have reported in your question, and which I was surprised to read in our newspapers from commentators who should certainly know better.

The PN is stating that when we do things together, everthing becomes possible. The MLP is promising a new beginning. How do you think these political stances may be reconciled with the campaign of mud-slinging and obscuring the other that is currently taking place through billboards especially, and political statements? As well through all those leaflets that are slithered down our letter boxes which seem to be clearly geared towards glorifying individuals within the Cabinet. What is their use? What are they telling us?

I believe that you are asking me about phenomena that are universal rather than just local.

George Steiner has said that entering politics today is like joining a nudist camp. You have to pander to the voyeuristic instinct in everybody. Many suspect that the motivations that make some people intervene in politics are complex and obscure.

Why, they ask, is Hillary Clinton so keen to get the right to dally daily at the exact spot, near the very desk, where her husband humiliated her though his act with Monica Lewinsky? Why are millions of ordinary citizens enjoying the revival of what has been described as the craziest vaudeville of contemporary history?

Likewise, I am surprised to see some publicists utilise the physical or mental weaknesses of some individuals in our electoral campaign. B.H. Levy has said that Hegel's dictum that "all that is real is rational, all that is rational is real" should be changed into or has yielded place to: "all that is real must become spectacle, all that is spectacle must turn into reality".

How are your remarks about the US relevant to Malta?

For me, the saddest aspect of recent Maltese politics is that a leader apparently believes so strongly that everything is possible through PR.

The role of spin doctors has resulted in the cost of party politics becoming immense. When the MLP decided to have its own television station, it brought to Malta the concentration of politics on intrinsically futile objectives.

Nevertheless, I myself continue to believe that ordinary people and especially the young can fairly easily distinguish between the real and the artificial.

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott was talking to Nicole Bugeja.