Edwin sends us to the jungle, the mighty jungle

Imagine a European politician saying the following things about his colleagues and the electorate. If you lose your faith and stop going to church, you lose your conscience. Lock stock and barrel. You become amoral, unable to have morals at all.

Now since having a conscience and morals is essentially what distinguishes humans from other animals, for this politician you are no longer a member of the species. When you exit god's kingdom you walk straight into the animal one. 

If you were baptised Simon, this politician seems to be saying, you become Timon from The Lion King.

Allow this politician to tax your imagination a bit further. He also declares that the instant you lose your faith - and, contrary to local lore, not going to church is tantamount to this - you also lose the ability to distinguish right from wrong. You become a steely-eyed Machiavellian whose life is run by a single dictum: the end justifies the means.
 

Now allow this European politician to stretch your already taut imagination by just one more inch. He characterises fellow politicians with liberal beliefs, including those in his own party, in the following terms: they lack courage, principles, values and the ability to lead. Being all egotists, they are utterly unable to make choices in the public interest.

Scary stuff? Well it should be if you are Maltese, don't go to church and would prefer not to join the animal kingdom. Because this politician is not imaginary at all. He is Edwin Vassallo, a former PN cabinet member, a sitting MP, the chairman of parliament's Social Affairs Committee and most probably a candidate in the next election.

In an In-Nazzjon article this week, Edwin Vassallo wrote each and every one of the words I attributed to the imaginary politician - well, except the bit about Timon.

A year into the Second World War, the British Ministry of Information ran a national poster campaign. The message was simple: idle talk picked up by Hitler's spies could be as deadly as his dive-bombing Stukas.

Perhaps there is a message here for Edwin Vassallo: careless talk costs elections.