The severe disability pension fraud is not the greatest waste of public funds. Compared with the 400 million spent on 3 hospitals that 10 years later are a dump, 8 million in stolen pensions drop no jaws. Compared with what was discovered by the Panama Papers, this conspiracy does not reach great heights: we do [...]
I had the good fortune of participating in a Europe-wide research project measuring the resilience of democracy in the EU and its member states. It’s an important topic especially since it is clear that democracy is under threat nearly everywhere. The question this research asks is not whether it is true or not that democracy [...]
Maybe it’s sour grapes. Going up to the counting hall after election day was something I did many times in different roles, to the point that it felt like it was the natural place for me to be. I started out as a cub reporter covering the first ever local elections in the early 1990s. [...]
A 15-year-old lad contested local elections and was elected. He turns 16 around the time you’re reading this, in between his O level exams and just before he gets sworn in as councillor. He comes from a family of politicians. His grandfather and his mother are in politics. One can only think he’s very committed [...]
Long is the road that lies ahead of the PN. The Local Election results paint a positive picture of the trends for the opposition party, but less positive than the picture painted by the European Parliament ballot. Two votes taken on the same day yielded different results. This means voters are casting their votes strategically. [...]
From my article in The Sunday Times yesterday: "Two weeks ago, the Labour Party thought of itself as a perpetually victorious machine. Its supporters and detractors are equally stunned by the fickleness of voter behaviour. And just as flummoxed on what to do about it. The Nationalist Party has found a new-found vigour, energised by a [...]
This is not a misdirected discussion with a marriage counsellor. It’s a discussion about our weird relationship with our police force and our prosecution service. By ‘our’ I don’t mean mine, or Repubblika’s, or anyone specific even. I mean with the people of Malta, generally law-abiding citizens who pay these people their salaries to represent [...]
My article in the current edition of the Money Magazine. An e-copy of the magazine is available on this link. You speak the word ‘mafia’ and it conjures up the quasi-glamorous images of American cinema. Frozen in the rackets of the 20th century, the iconography of those films of casinos and bootleg alcohol or [...]
Let’s compare like with like. We need to compare the frame of mind of Maltese voters with when they last voted in a European Parliament election, because what they’re thinking when they’re voting in a general election is simply different. So, here’s the shift between 2019 and 2024. The ruling Labour Party in this election [...]
There’s some confusion about whether or when the Panama Papers inquiry was concluded. Jason Azzopardi said it was. The PN asked the Attorney General to publish it. The Attorney General said they hadn’t got it. Perhaps the fact that we’re on the eve of an election might have dampened the enthusiasm of the Pony Express. [...]
Justice of Daphne. And justice for Malta. That’s what the conclusion of the Panama Papers inquiry might mean. That’s what it should mean. Though many people will do all they can to prevent that from happening. I don’t have a clue what the inquiry contains. I heard it was finished like everybody else from social [...]
From my article yesterday in The Sunday Times: "We have clamoured for an anti-mafia law for years now, since we realised in the horror of the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia that this is the plague of our country. By now, we should have had an anti-mafia prosecution service, special anti-mafia trial procedures, an anti-mafia [...]
That fateful night when Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad was spotted though not recognised by a film crew sneaking out of the back door of his bank, there was a moment of national crisis for the country. At least it felt like there should have been. Joseph Muscat had been long the suspect of wrongdoing for [...]