Fake news. From an official source.

Glen Bedingfield is a man of many hats but only one really counts. He’s a blogger. He’s a back-bench Labour MP. But those are auxiliaries. His core function is at the Office of the Prime Minister, at a desk no more than 10 metres from that of Joseph Muscat.

As a source he is as official as they come. As a reflection of Joseph Muscat’s views and intent, he is as close as one can hope for, second only to Joseph Muscat himself.

Here now is Glen Bedingfield, the prime minister’s mouthpiece, lining up health-care providers at Mater Dei accusing them of smiling, neglecting, for a cause of their own making, their suffering patients. He lines them up for the mob to lynch, at least metaphorically speaking. Look at the comments beneath his Facebook post and see how the desired effect is achieved.

The photo is actually of A&E doctors who sympathise with their union’s action but are obeying the minimum-services provisions of strike laws that require doctors to provide Sunday-service when striking. That means that the cohort at A&E in that photo is working flat out providing emergency care to patients as if it was any other day because, as you might expect, A&E services on Sundays are identical to any other time of night or day.

Glen Bedingfield knows this. He’s no ill informed idiot. He’s a liar, which comes with the job when you’re working for Joseph Muscat. But he’s also that sort of liar that Dante reserved a very specific place in hell for: a seminatore di discordie, a sower of discord if you like.

This lie is not simply intended to annoy the doctors in the picture whose vocation of tireless work for their patients is rewarded by this slander. This lie is intended to whip up anger in the mob, to present it with figures of hate, to empower the violent and the hating to do their worst on professionals whose unforgivable crime is disagreeing with the government.

Glen Bedingfield is an instrument of the state. The state has bashed doctors for expressing a view. All they did was pose for a picture to express solidarity with their striking colleagues. They have been intimidated by the state and put in clear and present danger. Working at the A&E can be risky enough as it is. Now the state has put them in some greater danger.