The phrase is a literal translation from German. It's not the twilight of our life, because Malta will outlast the criminals of our generation. It's not the twilight zone, because however mad, the shit we swim in is real. It's the twilight of the sepulchre, the shady place where law is weak and trust and [...]

Rosianne Cutajar and other gift-giving and food-distributing election candidates might have felt like they were getting a leg up from George Hyzler, the Commissioner for Standards, yesterday. Headlines all over the place picking what they were fed from the Commissioner’s conclusions left people with the impression that ‘Rosianne Cutajar had done nothing wrong’. Which, admittedly, [...]

Mr Omar Debono is not a public figure as such. But what he wrote on Facebook and the position he occupies gives insight into the mindset of people in responsibility and of the poor chances we have with thinking like this of emerging from the quagmire they put us in. Omar Debono is one of [...]

As if by design, whenever Malta seems to be going through a difficult time (which is every day really now), up pops Michelle Muscat on her cloying Instagram account to remind the great unwashed that she's doing well in her filtered designer kitsch bubble, thank you very much. Last Wednesday was the start of an [...]

'Mhux fair, ħi' sums up the official story about our grey-listing by the FATF. Many feared it, and many more groaned in pain when the news was confirmed. "We're fucked," was a much used phrase. The point is disaster does not happen when you fall in a hole. Disaster strikes when you realise that you're [...]

This is a speech I delivered earlier today at the Crossroads Europe Conference on EU Migration and Asylum Policy and the Public Debate organised by the Union of European Federalists.   Thank you, Union of European Federalists for organising this important discussion today. As with every political question, the underlying determinant of how this political [...]

This is how everything that goes wrong in the little universe inside the head of supporters of the Labour Party is explained. And I'm not sorry this sounds like it is suggesting that people who support the Labour Party have deficits for brains. If you're still supporting them, if you still think you can explain [...]

Joseph Muscat only had one comment to Times of Malta. "I fully concur with the prime minister's comments." Mur fucking obsor. The first sign that this country has become serious about raking the shit will be when Joseph Muscat has reasons to disagree with the prime minister. Until then il-Kink is still il-Kink. Prosit Prim [...]

Always look on the bright side of life. We're not as bad as North Korea and Iran, so viva l-lejber.

I sputtered 1,400 words this morning to explain why I think this country is not normal, but just look at this: Look at the person "liking" the message. Claire Cuschieri. That's the daughter of the president of Malta and the wife of Joseph Cuschieri, he who resigned as chief regulator of the financial services industry [...]

Every country has the government it deserves – Joseph de Maistre Uganda is well-known for the grand-scale theft of public funds corruption involving public officials at all levels of society as well as widespread political patronage systems. Elite corruption in Uganda is through the benefaction system which has been aggravated by foreign aid. Aid has [...]

If this had been a normal country there would be a political crisis right now. Grey-listing by the FATF is not something that happened to us. This is not some misfortune like an oil price crisis or an oil tanker leak or an earthquake. This is a catastrophic failure of policy by our political leaders. [...]

Let us all send a message of thanks to the inventor of Muscatonomics, the man who like a latter-day Moses led us out of the infamy of the nasty Nationalists, and herded us to the promised land of l-aqwa żmien. Spare a moment to thank Joseph Muscat and the Joshua to Muscat’s Moses. Thank Robert [...]

Don’t underestimate the darkness of the days ahead. And don’t underestimate the anger, the frustration, and the willingness of our government to hang others for lynching in order to avoid consequences on themselves. This will be ugliest for people whom the government will find it easy to project as candidates for responsibility for the hardship [...]

Think of our financial services after grey-listing as a once glorious entertainment neighbourhood that has gone to seed. Think of the Atlantic City Boardwalk after the prohibition heyday and before Playboy bought a huge plot. Think of the streets down from the Boulevard de Clichy echoing the Belle Époque in the din of Japanese tourists [...]

Education, education, and education. Try to think beyond the next 10 years, which is exactly what this country struggles to do most of the time. We need to rebuild our offer to the world if we are going to become an investment destination and that will mean preparing a new generation of workers that is [...]

I asked in an earlier post what we should be doing now, as a country, to start earning again the trust of the rest of the world that we are reasonable partners on the world stage and a place where you don’t need to be a criminal to do business. It wasn’t the right question. [...]

And so it is that days after Robert Abela promised to put us firmly on the path of “l-aqwa fid-dinja”, the world has stuck a label to our door saying we’re not to be trusted. In what I promise to be a brief moment of uncharacteristic lack of humility (the moment has started, in case [...]

This is a film of the launch of The Third Siege of Malta recorded on 9 June 2021 in Mistra. The discussion is chaired by Dr George Vital Zammit with Louiselle Vassallo, Professor Ġorġ Mallia and Christian Peregin (starts at 39:30). The film also includes readings from The Third Siege of Malta delivered by Winston [...]

Watch this video produced and distributed on Mario Cutajar’s official Facebook page. It’s a fluff piece for something called “the public service week”. The “occasion”, as they describe it, is a visit by Mario Cutajar to the public library in Valletta which shouldn’t be extraordinary in principle, though he looks in the video like he [...]