Of charlatans and hypocrites

I find it difficult to put ‘Alex Agius Saliba’ and ‘a bright political mind’ in the same sentence. His acumen and political vision are not the brightest sparks. But, for once, I read the headline of his Talking Point in the Times of Malta on March 14, and I thought: he is right. It is “time for political maturity”.

Judging from the headline, I would have thought that he would be bashing the government for the fraudulent Vitals deal; for rejecting a grieving mother’s plea for a public inquiry into the death of her son; for the failings which led to the murder of a wife and a mother.

Of course, he didn’t. Only politically mature people would do so. Take Gżira mayor Conrad Borg Manché, for example. He is an elected Labour politician, but – unlike his colleague Agius Saliba – he wasn’t afraid to defend his electorate against the bullying of his own government. That is what political maturity is all about. To remove the partisan bias and speak out when something is wrong.

In defending his political master and role-model Joseph Muscat, Agius Saliba says that the “original vision of the Vitals deal is a noble one”. Let’s try to understand this. Is he saying that fraud is noble? Is he implying that the fact that the Maltese government paid €355 million to Vitals for nothing – zilch – is noble? Dear Alex, I think it is time for some real political maturity as against grandiose statements, fired from the hip.

Steward will pack their bags and leave. PHOTO: MATTHEW MIRABELLI

Then – for some classical political maturity – he turns his guns on the opposition. Ah, so that’s what makes you politically mature. Ignore all your wrongdoings and blame the fault on others. Yes, it’s the opposition’s fault that the Vitals corrupt deal stank from day one. Yes, it’s Bernard Grech’s fault that Vitals and Steward got millions of euros from the government without doing a penny of work.

Yes, it’s Adrian Delia’s fault that we are now in a position where Steward and Vitals will pack their bags and leave and the hospitals that they had to modernise look more like a war zone than a place for medical care.

Pull the other one, dear Alex.

Then our MEP goes further and says – you have to read it twice to make sure you’re reading correctly – that it is because of the “opposition’s shouting, blaming and political scoring” that in Malta there is no good governance and no fairness. The mind boggles. What exactly is he trying to say? Is he trying to be politically mature by blaming the opposition for Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder, for the Castille gang involvement in the Panama Papers scandal, for the corrupt Electrogas deal?

For me, politics has always been about credibility. About politicians standing up for what is right, for what they believe in, for telling the truth even if sometimes it’s not easy to do so, for fighting injustice.

Unfortunately, MEP Agius Saliba – even though he strives hard to position himself as one of Labour’s young stars – ticks none of the boxes above. Pity.

So, yes, it is truly time for political maturity. If only dear Alex could heed his own advice. If only.

NICOLE PORTELLI - MŻPN executive committee member, Pietà

Poor argument

Fr Charlo Camilleri (‘What if God had sent his daughter?’, March 26) quotes the French writer Marie-Francoise Hanquez-Maincent on the subject of “the androcentric world view passed over to the Church from antiquity”.

Either Fr Camilleri or Hanquez-Maincent, or both of them, have their Latin genders confused. ‘Corpus’ (body) is not feminine but neuter and ‘anima’ (soul) is not masculine but feminine.

So to claim on a grammatical basis that “the world view passed over to the Church from antiquity” is mistaken and to proceed from that to the assertion that “if God is male, then the male is god” is poor argument.

Whether right or wrong, scripture is clear: “God sent his son” (Galatians 4:4), and God is not Mother, but Father.

ALAN COOKE – Sliema