Two days ago Robert Abela told journalists they could ask him 100 times whether he sat on the cabinet meeting that decided on whether to pardon Vincent Muscat, il-Koħħu. His answer would remain unchanged. He’s bound by cabinet secrecy and you couldn’t get the information out of him whether you threw a light on his [...]

Chris Said wrote yesterday on his Facebook page that Gozo General Hospital will return to public ownership in short order in an agreement with Steward Healthcare to quit Gozo’s only hospital. It has been in private ownership since it was sold together with St Luke’s and Karin Grech’s hospital to the obscure outfit VGH in [...]

Yesterday’s podcast was not kind to Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. It wasn’t intended to be. I wrote that I felt he deserved the humiliation he was served by the people he imagined were his new friends. I wrote that it is the fate of turncoats that the only people who are likely to trust them less [...]

The MFSA this week announced a replacement to US citizen Lawrence Connell who resigned from the position of “competent person” at law to oversee the affairs of Pilatus Bank. The new appointee is Robert Ancilleri, an accountant who is also in business with Kevin Deguara and Jean Karl Farrugia, partners of law firm DF advocates. [...]

 My piece in this season's Money Magazine. The world is changing. Do not expect the clock to turn back. The global village has come to pass. We will not go back from that. The far-left first rallied against the injustices of the new times as industry was spirited to where exploitation was cheaper. Then the [...]

Albert Gauci Cunningham was on another 2013 Labour Party billboard telling us that Joseph will bring about much-needed change. How right he was. Joseph made a change, a big one. He changed Malta from a respected member of the European Union to the ‘corrupt island in the Mediterranean.’ We had a respected statesman as a [...]

Robert Abela fancies himself as some sort of chess master, out-thinking everyone, always 7 moves ahead. But the Gavin Gulia situation has landed him in yet another muddy mess he should have anticipated. Gavin Gulia justified the ending of his 5-minute stint in parliament on instructions from the prime minister to stay on as tourism [...]

Manuel Delia · It's Not About 'deserve' Robert Abela appears to have picked the chairman of the commission that protects the interests of persons with disability to fill the seat vacated first by Edward Scicluna and then, in record time, by Gavin Gulia. The gentleman has never been openly partisan though he’s been part of [...]

The Labour government has trivialised the position of Member of Parliament to the point of absurdity and, by logical extension, irrelevance. Consider the series of cynical moves that played out over the last several days. Edward Scicluna resigned from parliament. It was really because he was retiring from or being thrown out of the front-bench [...]

Robert Abela refused to answer questions on whether he recused himself when cabinet discussed and decided to refuse a pardon to Vince Muscat il-Koħħu in exchange for testifying for the prosecution in the case against Daphne Caruana Galizia’s killers and several other cases, including murders. The issue of recusal came up because Vincent Muscat told [...]

This piece has been in print for a while but I missed it when it came out in November. Hopefully it hasn't aged too much. Let’s be optimistic, shall we? If only for the sake of argument the worst of Covid-19 is a memory, and our economy and our way of life can emerge from self-isolation [...]

Repubblika President Robert Aquilina today delivered to Parliament’s Speaker a copy of a document proposing Parliamentary reform. Speaking to the press, Robert Aquilina recalled that this year will be the 100th anniversary of Malta’s Parliament. Though Parliament operates from a new building it is burdened by old-fashioned practices that are out of sync with today’s [...]

Euronews separately interview Carmel Caccopardo and me about if and how Malta has changed in the year since Robert Abela took over. They also asked the government and the Labour Party for interviews but, as ever, "neither had responded at the time of publication". The article is linked here.

Not that rabbits, don't deserve saving. But, this is just too Monty Python to let it go by without remark. The national TV station carried this breathless report about rabbit rescues. You can't possibly miss it. 

Someone caught Ian Borg throw in a swear word on TV. The video made the rounds. I wasn’t shocked and I was not going to pretend I was. It’s a bit uncouth perhaps but it happens. God knows it happens to me, though a little bit of self-awareness normally means you can avoid swearing mid-sentence [...]

Reporters could hear the loud sigh of relief from the Labour Party when its renegade candidate Charles Azzopardi was eliminated in the counting of votes inherited from the recently transferred Edward Scicluna. Charles Azzopardi has since the election switched to the PN which would have meant Labour would lose another of its seats in Parliament, [...]

Manuel Delia · What's Showing On The Back Of The Cave Political parties are defending their right to own and operate TV stations on grounds of freedom of speech. The argument is compelling. In theory political parties are a manifestation of everyone’s right to associate in an organisation of like-minded people and the right of [...]

Last weekend I watched a spot of television. The first thing was ‘Treasure in Malta’, on YouTube, a 1962 film part-financed by the Malta tourist board, intended to promote Malta as a tourism destination. And it was, apparently, successful. Despite the appalling script and acting. It’s worth a view, if only to see Spinola Bay [...]

Hundreds of billboards placed a every strategic corner throughout Malta were important features of the multi-million 2013 Partit Laburista election campaign. Labour had money, lots of money. Anġlu Farrugia, today’s Speaker, spoke about big contractors and businessmen at the infamous 4th floor at the glass castle of Ħamrun. To give credibility to the messages, Labour [...]

There's an assumption that Kenneth Grech's advice to Frank Fabri from the education ministry to postpone the reopening of schools after the Christmas break was based exclusively on his - Kenneth Grech's - professional opinion. The assumption comes out of two facts. The first is that Kenneth Grech alone has been kicked out of the [...]