Owen Bonnici will be remembered as the Grima Wormtounge of this story. If you’re not a Tolkien reader, you’ll think of Squealer in Animal Farm. Or if you’re of the Harry Potter generation Peter Pettigrew. There’s been one like him since the myth of Gilgamesh.
He has allowed himself to be used by whom he acknowledged was the source of his importance. He justified Joseph Muscat’s regime to the international press, to international organisations, to our European partners and to his supporters sitting on benches in Great Siege Square. Right up till today he still is. Incredibly.
As the metaphorical artillery fire rings outside the windows of this collapsing regime, he thinks its fireworks celebrating it.
But there’s reluctant admiration in watching him buck the trend of most of his colleagues. He was far from the only one supporting Joseph Muscat. But almost all his colleagues are quickly deserting Joseph Muscat. They’re running away like rats off a sinking ship somehow trying to rub off memory of their complicity over the last three and a half years.
Owen Bonnici looks determined to sink with Joseph Muscat. I’m not crying.
