Europe, this is Tonio.

Dear European Union. Hi, how are you? I hope you are well (or at least, slightly better than you look in the international media at the moment). But in case you're still reeling from the eurozone crisis - and more to the point, in case you haven't yet recovered from the recent loss of your entire credibility thanks to Barroso's astonishing mishandling of John Dalli pseudo-resignation last week... I thought I'd cheer you all up with some wonderful news that is guaranteed to brighten up your dull Belgian skies FOREVER.

You are all about to get TB. That's right, my fine fellow Europeans: it's not just badgers in the Cotswolds who get to enjoy a little worldwide publicity on account of those ominous initials these days. Very shortly, you too - all 50 million of you - will likewise be able to enjoy all the symptoms of a full-blown TB epidemic, right there in the comfort of your own European homes. And sorry, but no: it makes no difference whatsoever that you were inoculated at age eight, and still have that little navel-lookalike scar on your left bicep to prove it.

For make no mistake: the world's medical community may well come up with a cure for pulmonary tuberculosis (bovine, badger, human, whatever) one fine day. But a cure for Tonio Borg? There is no such thing (trust me, I know, we've been trying to come up with one for years).

Therefore, ready or not, TB is certainly coming your way. And when he takes over that portfolio from the relatively uncontroversial John Dalli, and starts calling his shots in the European Commission instead of the Maltese House of Representatives (and in charge of the health portfolio, too. Just goes to show that Gonzi really does have a sense of humour after all)... well, my gut feeling tells me that pulmonary bacterial infections, no matter how potentially lethal and highly contagious - will suddenly be around the last thing on Europe's mind.

Especially the minds of the European citizens most likely to be affected by the disease. For instance, women: who will awake to discover that they have metamorphosed overnight into second class citizens in their own countries - forced to ask men for their permission just to leave their own homes (you never know: they might be tempted to stop by the nearest abortion clinic on the way back from shopping). And what about gays, I hear you ask? My, how positively thrilled all Europe's homosexuals shall be, when they belatedly realise that their entire existence is actually nothing but a test imposed by God on the patience of morally superior men like Tonio Borg... who was last heard huffing and puffing on that very subject in parliament, where he argued that... Oh great! So now we're expected to pretend that these (jaqq!) homosexuals not only exist in the first place... but they even have civil rights? That they are entitled to the same basic social services as us straight people? Yeah, right. Pull the other one...

To which all I can say is: sock to them, Tonio! You let them know what God Almighty told you in one of those private conversations you two get up to when you think we're not looking. Tell them that God expects them all to just slink off into a corner somewhere, and quietly fade out of existence so that the rest of us proud Catholics can have that more room to stretch our moral muscle-fibre...

Then, of course, there are the secular liberals - those nasty, evil Satanists who actually believe that the European Union is there to serve all its citizens' interests: and not just the interests of the Christians, who we all know really own Europe anyway. Yes, incredible as it sounds these retards actually think that religion and law should be kept studiously apart... and in their astonishing ignorance they even argue that it's for Europe's benefit: for all the world as though having a level playing field - in which all creeds and belief systems are viewed as equally valid - is a good thing. Can you imagine?

After those, the environmentalists. Not to mention... let's see now: what other category of person did Tonio Borg somehow manage to defecate all over throughout his 25-year career political career in Malta? Of course! Actors.... Authors... Editors... Producers... Pretty much anybody and everybody remotely connected with the basic principles of freedom of expression: be it in the print media, or in broadcasting, or especially in the theatre. All such nuisances have rightly been threatened with prison, as a result of a draconian censorship regime zealously defended by the divinely-appointed Justice Minister.

Which reminds me: I almost forgot the longest suffering category of all. The asylum seeker. Especially the Eritrean asylum seeker: you know, the ones who fear repatriation most of all, as it will almost certainly result in imprisonment, torture and most likely death.

Needless to say, being such a great Christian and all, Tonio Borg did what no other government official has ever done. He acknowledged that such people existed. Not only that, but - acting purely out of concern that some of them may have been suffering from homesickness, poor things - he decided to have them all rounded up, and transported to the airport in the comfort of a cosy army truck... whereupon they were flown back to Eritrea on the next available flight, at the Maltese government's expense.

Such generosity! Such magnanimity! Small wonder that their screams of gratitude were afterwards heard here in Malta all the way from the comfort of their prison cells on an island penal colony somewhere off the Eritrean coast... and so loudly did they scream that echoes can still be heard on YouTube.

Now that's what I call true leadership, folks. Courageous, inflexible and Oh! So humane. And now, all the corresponding segments of Europe's population - the women, the (jaqq!) gays, the vulnerable asylum seekers, etc - all of them are about to discover for themselves the undeniable benefits of having their very own Tonio Borg to administer to their daily needs.

But then again, such is your typical European's ignorance these days, that the vast majority of its 500 million inhabitants still have no idea what the European Union even is. They actually think it's an economic bloc built on the principles of the four freedoms. Little do they know that in reality it's just a glorified catwalk, for the likes of Tonio Borg to strut their stuff and parade their oh-so-very-superior Catholics morals for all to eternally gawk at.

But wait a sec. Maybe it won't actually happen. Maybe... who knows? Europeans are so incredibly stupid that, at the end of the day, they might not even recognise such a good deal even when it's staring them right in the face. Heck, some of them may even object on principle to the very idea that a man who had variously taken outrageously extreme positions on all the above issues - publicly arguing that women who procure abortions are 'murderers' who deserve to be imprisoned; or that gays are at best a public nuisance who deserve no attention at all; and that preserving his own should be entrusted with a Commission portfolio that directly impinges on their own rights, freedoms and dignity. 

And guess what? Outrageous as this undeniably sounds, the elected representatives of those same 500 million European citizens (yes, they have elected representatives: such is the sorry state to which European democracy has now degenerated) actually have a chance of block TB's candidacy. They have the power to veto his nomination: to overrule Lawrence Gonzi, no less. Can you imagine? A body of elected representatives, telling the unelected Commission who it can and cannot appoint as Commissioner? Whatever next?

So, just in case an army of European women, gays, environmentalists and anti-censorship activists - oh, and let's not forget the Godless infidels who argue against crucifixes forced down our collective throats by legal decree - descend upon the European Parliament with a view to derail what promises to be a pan-European TB epidemic... allow me to list out the reason you should also welcome Tonio Borg with open arms, and learn to love him in Brussels as we love him here in Malta. 

Let's start with that little Gift of Life incident. You might recall how, back in 2004, Lawrence Gonzi took the entire nation by surprise when he casually declared TOTAL WAR on female reproductive health rights. His plan was simple: to lift Malta's existing abortion ban from the Criminal Code (where it belongs) and stuff it into the Constitution (where it most emphatically does not)... with the declared aim of making it as difficult as possible for generations of unborn politicians to actually legislate on the matter as they themselves deem fit.

It doesn't really get more blatantly anti-democratic than that, now does it? Not only did Gonzi try to place his own party's outrageously primitive views on women's health rights beyond the reach of today's politicians... he wanted to continue exerting his influence even after his own tenure of office - beyond the grave, in fact. And why? Was it really to protect the unborn child, in a country where unborn children already enjoy the maximum protection possible: more, indeed, than any other country in the world (including the Vatican)?

Don't be daft. He just wanted to force the Opposition leader into the uncomfortable position of having to attack what was ostensibly a 'pro-life' initiative... so that he himself could afterwards retaliate by accusing Alfred Sant of being 'pro-choice'.

But where does Tonio Borg come in? Well, the next thing we knew, the entire Constitutional amendment plan became TB's own personal little unborn baby. And he seized this opportunity with unbelievable relish and gusto (seriously, it's about the only time in his entire 10-year stint as Justice Minister that I actually saw him do something with genuine enthusiasm): literally hijacking his own ministry infrastructure to send out tens of thousands of 'invitations' (read 'subtle threats') asking Malta's assorted miscellany of ju jitsu clubs and flower arrangement societies for their 'support'.

All this was done at the taxpayer's expense - and of course thousands of people complied, in a country where people still feel they literally depend of individual ministers for their business interests... and where the entire abortion issue is still steeped in a culture of fear and suspicion.

And that, my fine European friends, is how you deal with that inherently inferior creature called 'Woman'. None of this equal rights crap. Instead, you humiliate her in public... just like Tonio Borg did in 2004. You make her out to be a murderer, a criminal, a heretic, a reprobate. You subdue her into her silence, until - if she speaks at all - it will from the safety of a darkened studio with her voice altered beyond recognition. This was the astonishing state this country descended into in 2004: when a woman had to hide her face just to come out and say that she disagreed with the government's Constitutional entrenchment BULLYING.

I believe it's now referred to as the Tonio Borg method. The idea is to engender and foster a nationwide culture of fear and suspicion, so that pro-life fanaticism runs riot across the country, and people start calling (this really happened, by the way) for an outright ban on pregnant women travelling abroad; or for mandatory pregnancy testing at the airport, to make sure no woman had 'accidentally' aborted while on holiday.

Seriously, folks. I had never seen a more sinister, brutal and clinical affront to women's rights and dignity than that perpetrated by Tonio Borg, with the complicity of his government, between 2004 and 2005. I know some women who were reduced to tears by the initiative at the time, as they had naively been hoping that the national mood on abortion - indistinguishable from the sort of fanaticism one associates with the Muslim world - would begin to abate as soon as we joined the EU.

But no. The opposite happened instead. The national has visibly worsened to almost emergency levels, and it still remains a cause for serious concern today. Tonio Borg is the architect of this grave injustice towards the dignity of women - and, as outlined above, has also managed to humiliate gays and asylum seekers, among other useless, immoral minorities.

And for this, we - i.e., the members of the Sovereign Military Order of Maltese Homophobes, Chauvinists and Misogynists and Bigots - publicly applaud and commend his sterling efforts.