Partisan party considerations and public funds and cost should not mix.

One should not attempt to buy private loyalty with public money.

The role was carved out for government backbenchers purely for Nationalist Party reasons, not to satisfy any constitutional and public need, as in the case of Cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries, who head the Executive according to the democratic separation of powers.

The central theme of Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, was that the country is not in crisis. Parts of it are, parts are not. Taken as a whole it is certainly not relaxing on a bed of roses.

Whether it was a figment of Mgr Gonzi’s imagination, or whether Dom Mintoff deliberately gave that impression, it was the climax of the bitter Church-Labour dispute and the beginning of eight years of social banishment of MLP supporters.

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi prefers smelling roses than removing thorns