Sarah Puntan Galea, another footsoldier in Joseph Muscat’s regiment of truth bashers, wanted to remind the BBC’s Simon Reeve how journalism should be done. She thinks the world is like Malta where Labour gets to tell everyone what to think, no matter how absurd. The fact that the BBC interviewed me does not give anyone the right to counter-balance facts that are unpleasant to the government’s reputation with untruths professed by the government.

These were the facts that I spoke about in the interview with Simon Reeve:

  1. Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed in a car bomb.
  2. The gaming industry in Malta has been used by the Italian mafia to launder money.
  3. People can acquire a Maltese passport by paying a million euro even if they don’t really live here.
  4. There is international concern that Malta is used by crooks for money laundering.

These are unpleasant hearing for the government but no spokesman can contradict them without lying. And responsible journalism is obliged to present to the public the truth. Here in Malta the state broadcaster can ignore anything which reflects badly on the government. They won’t be getting a complaining tweet from Sarah Puntan Galea.

Simon Reeve asks the office of Malta’s prime minister: have you lost the plot?

They haven’t, Simon. It’s just that the plot they have is not one you would expect. It is a path to their personal enrichment and the perpetuation of their power and that plan depends on no one knowing the truth.