A false equivalence was created over the last few days that, as ever when that happens in a battle between right and wrong, handed the victory to the wrong. The Nationalist Party issued a statement today that reads like the Munich ‘compromise’ of 1938. The PN is proclaiming peace in our time. Yeah right. In [...]

Filed by someone known to me. It is in the Labour Party’s eminent interest to keep pushing out the narrative that criticising the government is being negative, thus attempting to pull the rug from under the Opposition’s feet, an Opposition whose DUTY it is to criticise the government when it behaves badly. When it does [...]

One TV had a field day with my reaction to Bernard Grech’s announcement that he had no problem with Adrian Delia. They’re going to have a field day with this. During Adrian Delia’s campaign for survival as party leader, his sub-literate henchman Vincent Borg, known as Ċensu l-Iswed, posted a long article on Facebook in [...]

Photo: Pippa Zammit Cutajar PEN International today renewed its call to Maltese authorities to ensure full justice for all those involved in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia and the corruption she exposed. The worldwide organisation also called on the prime minister to act on the findings of the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry [...]

Just to put things in perspective. Robert Abela recognised that the procurement of a €275 million project at St Vincent de Paul did not tick procedural boxes. He grossly understated the egregious flouting of procurement law but even the minimal things he acknowledged he justified by saying we now have a larger SVDP residence and [...]

Look, I appreciate that this scandal-a-day decade must have desensitised even the most fragile flowers. It’s become very hard to be shocked anymore. And we worry that frantic indignation makes us look uncouth. The thing to do is not to flinch and to give an aloof air of dispassionate normality. What’s another illegal contract, another [...]

“One cannot free oneself by bowing to the yoke, but by breaking it.” Carl Jung Before he was elected Labour leader, Robert Abela spoke of a “diabolical plan”. It was probably an inside message. The rest of us out here did not understand what he meant. Now, 15 months later, it seems clearer. To ensure [...]

Philip Sciberras, former judge, former Labour MP, a former unsuccessful mediator between the feuding Alfred Sant and Dom Mintoff, former Alfred Sant crony, holder of multiple pensions, long-term informal monopoly-holder of sensitive inquiries commissioned by the government, and vomiter of sundry hate against anything which does not conform with the diktat of his Labour Party, [...]

Malta’s presidents are expected to behave like the Queen of England. Whatever their opinions on decisions taken by their government, they are supposed to smile politely and assent without comment. But the Queen of England was bred for the sort of steely ambivalence that she needs to weather any and all assaults on her dignity. [...]

A convicted double-murderer has sent his lawyer to court to complain of inhuman conditions in prison. Why should we take the word of a convicted double-murderer as gospel truth? We shouldn’t. We shouldn’t take anyone’s word as gospel truth. We should listen to testimony, even if it is given by a convicted double-murderer but we [...]

Repubblika has this morning published a detailed policy paper that gives reasons for the organisation’s belief that Malta should not be selling its citizenship. Some of the arguments are what you would expect given all we know about Malta’s passport-selling scheme. But this is also an exercise that looks again at what citizenship really means [...]

I can’t imagine that Mark Camilleri’s opinions have the gravity to reroute the river of history inside the Labour Party. So I’ll take these remarks he made recently about pressure on Joseph Muscat to fire Keith Schembri to reflect what he imagines happened, rather than what really happened. But it’s interesting that Mark Camilleri says [...]

“The European Parliament is deeply concerned about the latest revelations in the investigations into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, in particular of the possible involvement of government ministers and political appointees and reiterates that the recent revelations raise new questions about the case and related investigations.” European Parliament Resolution – 29 April 2021 Shame, [...]

From the building of the European Parliament came the result of a resolution MEP Alex Agius Saliba said would be debated, voted on and approved over his dead body. I am reliably informed he’s still alive. Labour MEP’s voted against the resolution as did a smattering of other MEPs but the ayes had a landslide: [...]

Anġlu Farrugia’s non-decision of yesterday is spectacular in its inadequacy. By refusing to do one of the very few things the Speaker of Malta’s Parliament is actually expected to do (apart from listening to interminable and unproductive rhetoric), he has made himself redundant. But that’s just the start. I won’t bore you with the esoterica [...]

Read Ivan Martin’s detailed Times of Malta coverage of the findings by the National Auditor on the massive and massively rotten St Vincent de Paul residence expansion contracted directly to James Caterers and the DB Group. The auditor sees no reason to justify the government’s decision to ignore the law on public procurement when in [...]

The author, who is known to me, had written about this subject on this blog some time ago. So far, investigators have been unable – maybe intentionally – to come up with the name of who was the ‘original’ local mysterious real owner of Panamanian registered company Egrant. Why I lay stress on the word [...]

Updated at 10:25 of 28 April 2021 The newly confirmed Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations, Anthony Abela Medici, has a chip on his shoulder the size of a boulder. He’s harboured a grudge for a long, long time. The chevalier, as he insists on calling himself, joined the civil service in 1981 on salary scale 7 [...]

The controversial Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations, Anthony Abela Medici, has just been confirmed in his post by the government for another 3 years. A notice in the Government Gazette today gave the news. Recent decisions by Anthony Abela Medici have raised the ire of several NGOs as new rules restricting voluntary donations to NGOs have [...]

That is how Robert Abela described the Passport Papers. He’s right of course. Long before these leaks, we understood the government was lying about “talent attracted to Malta” by this scheme. Everyone had figured out the passport-buyers pretended to live here but didn’t. Most had heard of the links with Cambridge Analytica and voter manipulation. [...]