[WATCH] Bartolo’s audacious ‘hymen’ quip treads fine line

Education minister Evarist Bartolo tested the waters of good taste in a political speech Sunday morning, when he likened the Nationalist Party to a woman seeking hymen reconstruction surgery, although he was careful not to use those words.

In the audacious euphemism, Bartolo elicited some audible laughs from Labour supporters at the Birkirkara club when he asked them to consider the image of a brothel madam who "wants to recover her virginity" through surgery.

"I don't know if our plastic surgeons carry out these interventions... they're $30 in the USA, you're back a virgin in 30 minutes. You can fool your partner by making him think you're brand new," he said.

PN organ maltarightnow.com took exception at Bartolo's "mockery of the PN".

This is not the first time that government ministers test audiences with daring allusions. Former minister Austin Gatt had to pay former Labour leader Alfred Sant €1,000 in damages when comments he passed in the PN General Council implied that Sant had a drink problem.

Gatt had referred to the tone of a speech by Sant in a political activity in September 2007, and likened him to one of the leaders featured in the Discovery Channel programme Altered Statesmen, an innuendo for an altered state of mind.