The Government has said Mr Azopardi and Ms Hassan Nahon “both seem to have lost their political perspective when preparing their New Year Messages”. 

A statement from the Government follows below:

As we have already noted, Mr Azopardi launched an unprovoked, gratuitous political and personal attack on the Government and the Chief Minister and then seemed surprised when it was met with a robust response. 

Meanwhile, in her New Year’s message on social media, Ms Hassan Nahon described the Chief Minister’s policy of standing up to Vox's hate speech as ‘belligerence’ and she criticised our Government for its policy of defending Gibraltar against such vicious attacks. 

All this comes just a matter of weeks after she energetically encouraged the Chief Minister to stand up to Vox’s ‘bully boy’ tactics. Quite simply, she has committed a classic U turn of policy. 

The Chief Minister said: "In December, Ms Hassan Nahon fully supported the action against Vox. It is just a few weeks since she was saying that “hatred is an evil that has to be stamped out, in whatever shape or form.” Astonishingly, she is now attacking exactly this same action! 

“The fact of the matter is that Ms Hassan Nahon is making a habit of changing her position on so many things that she can no longer be seen to be a reliable advocate for a particular policy line. This must be a huge disappointment both to her party and to those who hoped for better things from her."