From my article in The Sunday Times today: "Forty thousand’ they say, warning their opponents that, once the result of the next election is known, they’ll have no choice but to shut up, perhaps leave the country. They don’t necessarily address that to the opposition in the wider sense as much as to Times of [...]
Desmond Zammit Marmara, it is the fate of democrats like you and me to learn to live with the fact that we have resigned our fate to the determination of, as you call them, “brainless idiots”. I will also use your words to describe those of us who are not brainless idiots: “intellectuals”. You insist [...]
Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, yesterday included in her whirlwind program a visit to the site where what was left of Daphne Caruana Galizia was recovered after her death in October 2017. Roberta Metsola followed her predecessors and colleagues at the highest levels of European institutions. The visit should be as uncontroversial as [...]
Parliament is debating a new law that will criminalise cyberstalking and cyberbullying. Anyone convicted of these new crimes is looking at a maximum of 5 years in prison. Cyberstalking happens when someone attempts to cause harm to someone else by contacting them over some device, or causes their computer or device to do something, or [...]
In the first part of this article, I argued that rather than bringing to a head the important issues facing our country, the proximity of the general election is slowing down progress, deflating interest, and generally chilling the passions they have, in the past, inflamed. Here are 6 examples of what I mean by important [...]
Every page on this website that you visit asks for your financial support so this show is kept on the road. It’s inevitable that what is always there is, over time, ignored as background noise. I thank every subscriber that supports this website with automatic monthly payments. You are not many, which makes your generosity [...]
One of Michael McIntyre’s more relatable skits is the one about walking under the street decorations bombarded by that Mariah Carey song and saying ‘I don’t know what it is but I just haven’t felt Christmassy yet this year. I’m trying. I just got nothing.’ And then it comes, in the latter part of December, [...]
If you’ve visited this website over the last couple of days you will have been prompted by a notice about cookies asking you to confirm whether you agree or disagree with the storage of data about your visit. This short note is here to tell you that the notice is indeed part of this website [...]
The Italians use the idiom ‘da quale pulpito viene la predica’. Look at this sermon by one Justin Farrugia, an audio-visual company owner who, bucking the trend set by other film-makers and TV producers, thought that the €2 million film awards night (the figure is unconfirmed but undenied by the government) was a great idea. [...]
A few days ago, I wrote about a relatively minor cock up by the foreign office when they forgot to ask Parliament’s nominations committee to interview and vote on someone they nominated to be our ambassador to Ireland. Preparing that piece, I read up on the rules. Foreign office employees do not need to be [...]
Reverse engineer the discourse of Labour Party politicians to work out what’s worrying them in the data they’re reading. Worrying is relative. They’re not worried they will be losing the election. But they are worried about trends in their support base that could prove to be the thin end of a wedge that could lift [...]
Nadine Delicata, president of Steward Health Care Malta uses this morning’s Times of Malta to indict the government about the state of the three formerly publicly hospitals they run. But first she lashes out at “everyone on the island” because of what she suggests are baseless opinions “trotted out for political point-scoring” forgetting Steward’s hard-working [...]
It is to George Hyzler’s credit that many interpreted the news the prime minister will nominate him to the court of auditors as a way of getting him out of the government’s way. I don’t think anyone agrees with all his decisions. He could have taken up cases and investigated complaints he found creative reasons [...]
He’s having cold feet about the election date. Apparently. He had almost made up his mind about a March election but he's not so sure anymore. Short of an Atocha bombing there’s little to shake the expectation of a Labour landslide whenever it is during the next 6 months that the election is called for. [...]
Robert Abela said this morning Joseph Muscat was given government property in Pietà for his personal use “as part of his severance package”. The office needed to be searched by the police for evidence of a crime for us to even ever know about it. Which can mean there’s more to the severance package [...]
There’s a little-known committee in Parliament that has the job of interviewing people the government nominates to important posts. Sometimes the committee comes to the public’s attention. Yesterday, the committee voted on the confirmation of John Mamo as chairman of the financial services authority. The nomination was approved for the simple reason that the government [...]
Robert Abela’s sister-in-law is campaigning for a seat in Parliament. It seems everyone must stand while she searches for a chair. Here’s her propaganda truck in Bormla, the town she is, ironically, the mayor of. It’s as subtle as a drunk in a graveyard. These images came to me from someone trying to have a [...]
When the futility of history risks overwhelming one, all one is left with to bear the crushing disappointment in sheer existence, is some indulgence in the ironies. Consider the immediate complaint in Parliament from PN MP Claudette Buttigieg who heard Rosianne Cutajar call out ‘qaħba’ (‘whore’) in her general direction while she (Buttigieg) was criticising [...]
The now notorious film awards event of last Saturday is still on the national agenda. The extravagant spending is an important topic especially since the cost of the event outstripped the yearly funding put up by the government to support the industry the event was supposed to be celebrating. Matthew Caruana Galizia made the point [...]