There’s no shame in begging if you are in desperate need. The shame must lie with people who need to be begged to stop allowing the conditions in which begging is necessary. Jean Paul Sofia’s mother spent the day outside Parliament yesterday collecting signatures to persuade the prime minister to order an inquiry to find [...]
The Malta Film Commission Facebook page has a new profile. Is the Commission diversifying genres or have they replaced the Commissioner with someone more resourceful?
https://www.change.org/p/petition-to-members-of-parliament-to-support-a-public-enquiry-on-the-death-of-jean-paul
Times of Malta works out how much fines the Financial Intelligence Agency has raised over the last several months. It comes to an average of around €360,000 every month. The report also says there are 17 court cases filed against the FIAU by people it has fined, all making the same complaint. The complaint is [...]
Robert Abela’s behaviour in the Jean Paul Sofia case would be worryingly childish if it weren’t worryingly corrupt. Parliament debated a motion yesterday asking for an inquiry to establish if the government had done less than it should have to avoid Mr Sofia’s untimely death. An inquiry would act independently (of anyone, not just the [...]
The European Commission’s rule of law report on Malta finds very slow progress on its recommendations for reform. It is especially scathing on the government’s failure the improve the working environment of journalists. “While the media reform process launched following the publication of the report of the Daphne Caruana Galizia public inquiry is still ongoing, [...]
They don’t make racists like they used to anymore. In the good old days, home-grown, genuine article racists wouldn’t mince words about their prejudice, and would justify to anyone prepared to listen and to anyone not prepared to listen, their cruelty and their willingness to discriminate with what they seemed to genuinely believe was their [...]
Photo: Matthew Mirabelli/AFP I have decided to file a libel suit against Simon Mercieca. On his blog he folded into a smattering of half-truths a bunch of lies about my time as a government employee before the 2013 general elections. I have never, before now, had to defend myself from accusations of corruption, [...]
The putrefaction of Labour 2013 stifles the air. These would be heady days of excitement for the promise of change for the better if such a promise existed. It doesn’t. For better or worse there is little to look forward to. What happens after the fall is in the mist. What is happening now, before [...]
From my article in The Sunday Times today: "Many people never cared for local councils. They dismissed them as petty and parochial and beneath their daily concerns. It is in the shadow of that indifference that Joseph Muscat and Robert Abela hollowed them out, leaving little more than flags and glorified local clerks working as [...]