There has been some debate about whether the Opposition should accept the Government’s invitation to nominate a member on its waste management committee. The arguments for an invitation to the Opposition are quite straightforward and at face value should not be controversial. Waste management is a creeping national crisis that piles up on our waist [...]

The nineteenth century movements in Europe that would eventually call themselves nationalist were disparate and distinctive. Indeed there were as many “nationalisms” as there were nations. The method of elite nationalist movements was replicable, by and large: design a culture, reverse engineer its pedigree and proclaim its rights to self-determination. But the details were never [...]

Matthew Mizzi sent in this detailed response to my earlier post ‘Staying put’, where I expressed disagreement with people leaving the PN because of concerns about direction the new leadership is taking. I argued that without glossing over those concerns, which I share, critics of the new leadership should not forfeit their right as party [...]

The upcoming deputy leadership elections in the PN will be an administrative and financial headache, quite apart from the politics involved. As with the leadership election, the long-winded process will climax with a ballot for the wider membership suffrage. The whole thing does feel a little over the top. Those who have come to terms [...]

When you’re 38,000 votes behind the opposition you cannot afford to be complacent about the votes you lose. I think the entire PN is aware of that simple fact and everyone who wants the best for the PN hurts when they hear of this one or that one leaving. In 2013, Simon Busuttil wanted to [...]

Kevin Cassar, formerly a general election candidate for the PN, is now an ex-PN member. He resigned in a letter to Assistant General Secretary Jean Pierre Debono made public by Cassar on Facebook. The usual wise guys reacted with a smug “Kevin who?” There is a general attitude from the Adrian Delia loyalists in the [...]

Gozitan University students are not managing to find affordable housing even as lectures start again next week. In any major city students are vulnerable to unaffordable rent prices but here in Malta most students live with ma and pa. Gozitans do not have that luxury. Commuting daily is impractical and unreliable. At least on weekdays [...]

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "Hours after the election of a leader who railed against The Establishment within the party, the victor becomes The Establishment and writes the official history before it happens. Dissent that was branded liberating in the hands of the rebel is quickly branded treacherous in the hands of [...]

Jean Pierre Debono understandably vented his fury at Malta Today for reporting this morning that he had forged signatures as part of the PN leadership election process. Malta Today was reporting on a redacted leaked report of the electoral commission. The commission reprimanded him but it did not accuse him of, let alone found, he [...]

The Times today reports that Adrian Delia appears no longer to hold out hope any of the by-elected MPs will make way for his co-option. He is therefore now having to turn to MPs elected in their own right to give up their seat and make way for the nail-biting proposition that their elected replacement [...]

Malta Today is reporting that people acting on instructions of the party leader have met MP Ivan Bartolo and in seeking to persuade him to quit his parliamentary seat to allow for Adrian Delia’s co-option, offered Mr Bartolo a salaried consultancy position that would make up for the loss of his parliamentary earnings. Malta Today [...]

It would be reasonable to expect that at tonight’s PN meeting, the new leader announces his path to the office of Leader of the Opposition. Tomorrow is Independence Day and as an official of the state, an occupier of a ranking constitutional title, the Leader of the Opposition participates in the formal ceremonies of the [...]

Judge Antonio Mizzi decided today that Simon Busuttil’s arguments for him, the judge, to recuse himself from hearing the prime minister’s appeal from a lower court’s decision to order an investigation into the Panama scandal is heard in an open court. It was the right decision. The contrary would have been a travesty. It was [...]

Adrian Delia is now leader of the PN. Many expected this for some time. That expectation has peaked excitement and confidence in his supporters some of which leaked in bluster and spittle. His detractors felt dread and a sense of doom. Some of which leaked in bluster and spittle. And now the result is out, [...]

There’s no better day for the government to bury bad news than the leadership election in the opposition party. It is indeed remarkable than in the midst of election day, the PN found the presence of mind and the focus to not let Konrad Mizzi’s quite horrific threat to Air Malta employees pass without comment. [...]

A friend of mine had dinner with Eddie Fenech Adami a few days ago. “Chief”, he asked him, for the oldies will always call him ‘Kap’, “who should I be voting for?” After a pregnant silence – that dramatic pause for effect the consummate diplomat never drops even if he’s been out of business for [...]

I am no fan of arguments for cross-party consensus. I appreciate that negotiation can be productive where confrontation is not. But in political discourse, disagreement is essential to ensure transparency in argumentation, an honest pursuit for alternatives, and the avoidance of collusion between political forces at the expense of the public. A dialectical process is [...]

… is that there is only one of her. She has not been too far from the news for the past 30 years. She is, if you think about it, a more long-lasting feature of our scene than Alfred Sant, Lawrence Gonzi and others who invested their life to exist in the public eye. I [...]

Frank Portelli, erstwhile PN leadership candidate, is all over Facebook teaching us all a lesson in party loyalty and unity after losing an electoral race. He shows us how it should be done by firing grape-shot in the general direction of anyone he dislikes in the process hitting innocent bystanders like there’s no tomorrow. In [...]