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| Dom Mintoff |
Dom Mintoff has today died in Malta having turned 96 on the sixth
August.
He was a Maltese politician, journalist and architect, who
served as leader of the Labour Party for 35 years from 1949 to 1984, Prime
Minister of Malta from 1955 to 1958 and again, post-Independence, from 1971 to
1984.
Leader of the Maltese Labour Party for 35 years, he was
Prime Minister before and after independence and he consistently stood up for the interests of the Maltese
people against both the Catholic Church and Britain. Born in 1916 he was the
son of a British Navy cook he grew up in a British Malta where 30% of the
island was off limits to Maltese. From his humble origins he obtained a science
degree and subsequently qualified as a Civil Engineer and Architect. He went to
Hertford College, Oxford on a scholarship graduating with a Masters in Science
and Engineering.
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| Valletta after the Siege of Malta in WW11 |
For all the guff about "Malta George Cross" and
Malta being Britain’s unsinkable aircraft carrier the island was left destroyed after World War 11
and Britain's main response was to pay the fares for Maltese to emigrate to
other countries.
In his first term as Prime Minister he campaigned for closer
integration with the UK and having lost the 1962 election, Mintoff orchestrated
his party's boycott of the independence celebrations. He led negotiations
leading to the closure of the UK base facilities on Malta. Britain wanted to
withdraw as its Empire was being decolonised and this was going to hit the Maltese economy
hard. He got a good deal and overall he did well for Malta but the economy
experienced a slump in the years immediately after the huge UK bases and Naval
Dockyards were closed. Mintoff was often painted as anti-British in the UK
tabloids but far from it, he was consistently pro-Maltese
True to his socialist principles his tenure as Prime
Minister was notable due to a general increase in the average standard of
living and the establishment of a comprehensive welfare state. To this day
Malta has high educational and health standards.
Mintoff will be sorely missed, even by his political
opponents, in this very special little country often described as the lynchpin
of the Mediterranean. He is to be buried after a State Funeral.
Dom Mintoff was a politician of enormous integrity.
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| Dom Mintoff campaigning in the towns of Malta and Gozo in 1950 |
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