UPDATED: Not the story
Updated 29 January 2020 14:08 Adds another comment thread on Facebook in reaction to the below. I rarely, almost never participate in Facebook chats. Most are littered with trolls and almost no one who participates in these discussions is open to persuasion. I would have entered into this particular discussion but the settings it is on, [...]
Forgetting November
The protests of November and December 2019 were the biggest and most sustained public political manifestations not called by either major political party in living memory. They were also the most successful. They achieved aims broadly thought impossible just a few weeks before including the resignation of Joseph Muscat from the office he least wanted [...]
So, you’ve cancelled Konrad Mizzi’s contract. And now?
Julia Farrugia Portelli issued a statement saying she ordered the tourism authority (that reports to her) to cancel a fat and utterly pointless consultancy contract it entered into with her predecessor Konrad Mizzi, who resigned in disgrace. Is that it? We’re supposed to be ok now? This is like a thief in black leggings and [...]
GUEST POST: Can the Partit Nazzjonalista be the solution?
“Circumstantial evidence” confirms that the highest hierarchies in government for long had abetted and themselves engaged in evil acts. One cannot but judge the current Labour government as morally and politically illegitimate. In accordance with Christian faith and the natural law a similar structure that for long years has developed its political action on mass [...]
Is Joseph Muscat now on the payroll of a dictatorship?
Comments made to the press this morning by MEP Roberta Metsola, after asking some tough questions of prime minister Robert Abela in Brussels, suggest that Joseph Muscat flew to Dubai last December to sign up on some sort of retainer with the Dubai emirate or one of its senior agencies. When asked if he knew [...]
Is Andy Ellul advising the government?
Andy Ellul's article in today's Times of Malta is positively bonkers. It is so utterly mad, Robert Musumeci could have written it. If he dares snub me because I'm not a lawyer and therefore unqualified for disagreeing with him he should consider his own audacity in trying to lecture the dean of the faculty of [...]
U-turns don’t cut it
Robert Abela is hoping this morning that his u-turns over Konrad Mizzi’s promotion, pay-rise and prestigious diplomatic assignment will diffuse the anger he caused yesterday. They can’t. There can’t be anything more hollow than his statement in the wee hours of this morning that he’s so committed to good governance that he’s taking action over [...]
OK Bob, Honeymoon’s over. Wednesday 29th at 6pm. See you outside Parliament.
The Times of Malta followed up the story out of Parliament that Konrad Mizzi was being named as head of Malta's delegation to the OSCE, with another bigger story. No sooner he resigned in disgrace from the Tourism Ministry last November than two weeks later he was appointed by the government agency that reported to [...]
You’re asking for it, Bob
Konrad Mizzi heading a parliamentary delegation to the OSCE to speak about media freedom and human rights is not funny. Robert Abela thinks he’s looking smart. He thinks he’s easing in an anal plug the wrong way round. He thinks he’s done enough to suck the wind out of everyone else’s sails, he’s done enough [...]
Another resignation for no reason whatsoever
There aren’t many people who can say anything good about Anthony Degiovanni. The Times called him a “Labour stalwart” which, I suppose, is something. Though it helps to be obtuse, off-putting, illogical, self-referential, toxic, deluded, monolithic, repetitive, bombastic, tiresome and irrelevant, these are not official requirements for that title. They are however requirements for professional [...]
The ‘good clean up’ stunt, Part II
Look again at yesterday’s Sunday Times headline about Robert Abela “cleaning up” the prime minister’s office after taking it over from Joseph Muscat’s smut: “Most OPM officials linked to Keith Schembri told to leave”. Hold on one bleeding minute there. Keith Schembri was himself a staffer. Sure he may have had a driver assigned to [...]
Sandro won’t have it
I think it’s wrong to let comments made by Sandro Chetcuti of the developers’ association a few days ago go past without remark. He was receiving Robert Abela in a formal setting when he said his developers’ association supports civil society’s campaign to ban private funding of political parties. Civil society is almost always on [...]
The ‘good clean up’ stunt
Robert Abela’s office is making a big song and dance about a “clean up” in the government ranks. In a story in yesterday The Sunday Times they made a claim about removing an unquantified and unspecified number of former OPM staffers representing this as some sort of cull. Of course, this is a load of [...]
New sports director of Malta’s Italian football team had been charged and acquitted for illegal betting
Gaetano Farruggio (right) Gaetano Farruggio, ex Ħamrun Spartans coach, has been handpicked by MFA President Bjorn Vassallo to work as “sports director” of the new Maltese club “Malta SA” that will be competing from next year in the Italian third division. The news was given by Gaetano Farruggio himself in an interview with [...]
AL JAZEERA: Daphne’s legacy
If you haven't yet, watch this short shown on Al Jazeera's 'The Listening Post' which is their regular program on worldwide journalism. There's an interesting interview with Xarabank's Mark Laurence Zammit who speaks with remarkable candour about the realisation that many of us were too small to realise just how big the corruption was and [...]
Leave the children out of it
I let some time pass before I commented on Robert Abela’s appearance on TVM with his family. The first reason was to avoid even the impression this was some “attack moqżież u faħxi fuq it-tifla tal-prim ministru”. This is not what this post is about at all. Why do politicians present themselves in photos and [...]
That city on the hill
We have converted a reality into a dream, reversed the realisation of our ambitions, stepped further from our own home. We allowed the golden calf of money to distract us from the truth we used to long for until we forgot to care anymore. The Economist Intelligence Unit no longer thinks we are a democracy [...]
You give us too much credit
State-funded dinosaur Mario Azzopardi is calling for street protests to reverse Justyne Caruana’s resignation. He’s angry because his idols fell like flies. He remembers a time when he could call protesters bitches and whores. He remembers a time when the heroes of the mythology in his head were immortal and unbeatable. He remembers a time [...]
Bent cops and straight shooters
The independent inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia is proving to be a very important public service. Daphne’s sons were accused of all sorts of things as the government sought reasons not to have the inquiry. The more time passes the more we can see why. As Daphne did through her journalism, the [...]