General Councillors of the Nationalist Party are being convened later this month to vote on a confidence motion in Party leader Adrian Delia. The vote is beset by confusion, designed and intended by the leader himself. The last thing he wants from the process is clarity. The most obvious contradictory message to Councillors is that [...]

From my article in The Sunday Times today:  "Why would Galea allow himself to be part of a charade? Has he reconciled the doubts he had about Delia’s suitability for leadership? Has Delia’s election absolved him of his past like a sacral bath? What comes into play in the present situation is a hope that [...]

I watched Louis Galea give a comment this morning to the PN’s TV station about the brief given him at yesterday’s Executive meeting that approved Adrian Delia’s proposal to have Louis Galea brought in to manage the party’s reform program. I have plenty to say about what happened but I think I’ll leave some of [...]

David Casa is one as of today. The position will not require him to wear a white toga praetexta with a broad purple stripe on its border, though I imagine he’d cut a dash in an Ancient Roman outfit. But in the European Parliament, quaestors are elected by their peers to run administrative and financial [...]

Granted that for political parties to work you need some form of a chain of command. If everyone says what they’re thinking at the moment and shoots from the hip, if there’s no coherence and no coordination, a party is no longer worthy of that name: it becomes chaos. But political parties are not armies. [...]

Update at 12:42. Carried Clyde Puli's denial If only the PN sources speaking to Times of Malta’s Ivan Camilleri today could hear themselves speak. The story goes that Clyde Puli has informed his colleagues at PN HQ that he does not want to extend his term as Secretary-General beyond its expiry in November.  It’s after [...]

Collecting 5,000 signatures is an impressive administrative effort. Supporters of Adrian Delia wanted to be seen to amount to more than the rebels who called for a confidence vote in the leader, hopefully killing the argument just by showing up. Of course, that’s the half of the story they want us to think of.  The [...]

Photo: Mahmud Turkia/AFP/Getty Images Forty-four migrants, many of them women and children, were killed in Libya when an air strike hit the detention centre they were locked up in just outside Tripoli. Another 130 people at least were injured in the attack. The migrants were prisoners of the Libyan government fulfilling its obligations [...]

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has joined the worldwide call for a proper investigation into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia and for impunity to end for those who killed her and those who got away with the crimes she revealed. The same call in her country must be kept up. The [...]

From the capable hands of BugM on Twitter: “Almost” pic.twitter.com/2e2rWH7G40— BugM (@bugdavem) July 3, 2019 “Almost” - international friends edition. pic.twitter.com/AtAft4izGx— BugM (@bugdavem) July 3, 2019 “Almost” pic.twitter.com/TLEW2jrKSL— BugM (@bugdavem) July 2, 2019

To bring down the divisions within the Nationalist Party to old-fashioned Marxist class conflict is nostalgic, simplistic and wrong. James Debono did so for MaltaToday. He is one of the sharpest minds writing in the press and his deep seeping in ideological analysis more often than not provides an alternative and sound insight. This one [...]

This post is being updated as more witty posts show up on Twitter and Facebook. One TV's coverage that celebrated the fact that Joseph Muscat almost made President of the European Council started a trail of hilarity on social media. Here are some tweets and Facebook posts of people who almost made it, starting with [...]

Several Sicilian town councils are expressing misgivings and regret about the expenses they have made in hosting Ray Bondin believing he was either Malta’s Ambassador to UNESCO or an official from the UN organisation itself. Over several years Ray Bondin has ‘advised’ Sicilian town councils in their applications to UNESCO to have their towns or [...]

The reaction of Labour’s trolls to the BBC Radio series on Daphne Caruana Galizia’s life illustrates the venom and oppressive abuse no dramatisation can fully explain in the way witnessing real experience can. Saviour Balzan, Tony Zarb and the others did not actually listen to the full series yet. Very few people have. Most can [...]

Coverage on the national broadcaster TVM and on Malta Today was pathetic because it was possibly the worst day ever to follow the line of the Labour Party's media on anything. Labour had been getting ready for months to celebrate the transfiguration of the "kink" Joseph Muscat into the blinding light of European glory. In retrospect, [...]

This in depth story about the ‘Mystery Professor’ Joseph Mifsud in yesterday’s The Washington Post makes fascinating reading. In the absence of the man, the two sides of the question on the extent of Russian meddling in US elections grasp at hints in the vague trails left in Joseph Mifsud’s past to prove their side [...]

The PN today started its arguments in the Court of Appeal to try to have a decision to refuse Adrian Delia a copy of the Egrant report overturned. And it based those arguments on a court application filed by Repubblika in its own court action asking for an inquiry to start into the hospitals privatisations. [...]

Not that he’s spending too much time on the beach. He was answering Newsbook’s challenge on why three Sundays in a row he gave exclusive access to the political field to Joseph Muscat and abstained from any public events or policy statements on Sundays. Newsbook calls the Sunday events “traditional” and describes the party leaders’ [...]

Statement by Repubblika of today: https://youtu.be/ibNZVROabN8 An English version of the text of the statement follows: Repubblika is disappointed by the reaction of the Maltese Government and Maltese institutions with regard to the appeals made by Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for more transparency in the rule of law in Malta. This reaction [...]

Two Italian journalists who live under continuous police escort provided by the State because of their journalism on the mafia and organised crime have launched a change.org petition calling on the implementation by Malta of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly’s resolution of last week. The petition specifically calls on the government to initiate an [...]