Racism is expensive

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2020-07-07T09:18:09+02:00Tue, 7th Jul '20, 09:18|

There are 50 people out in our waters who have spent another night on choppy seas lying on metal floors caked with cow dung the animals shat a week ago. That’s a result of government policy not to allow migrants to land before European countries accept to take them off our hands. The policy is [...]

He won’t go quietly into the night

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2020-07-07T08:45:40+02:00Tue, 7th Jul '20, 08:45|

Adrian Delia is the archetype of the populist tyrant. It doesn’t matter to him that he doesn’t have the support of his Members of Parliament. It does not matter to him that you can’t have a leader of opposition if the opposition does not follow him. He will stick around claiming legitimacy from his party [...]

Impeach Peter Grech

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2020-07-07T09:34:54+02:00Tue, 7th Jul '20, 08:17|

Only Parliament can fire the attorney general. Peter Grech is not the mastermind of the corruption and crime perpetrated by Joseph Muscat’s gang. But he was their willing tool. They needed him to instruct the police to stay away from the Nexia BT offices where evidence of corruption was allowed to perish. There can be [...]

It doesn’t look good enough for cows

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2020-07-05T20:54:32+02:00Sun, 5th Jul '20, 20:54|

Around 50 migrants are in Malta’s territorial waters within sight of our coast. They have been sleeping on the metal floor of sea-going stables right next to the dung of animals that have been delivered to Africa and that has been fermenting and rotting for days. These pictures taken by the crew of the MV [...]

PODCAST: ‘I’m behind you’

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2020-07-05T12:41:58+02:00Sun, 5th Jul '20, 11:44|

Emanuel Delia · 'I'm Behind You' For a minute, leave aside the political calculus: who wins the next election; how Labour consolidates its ample majorities even though it rightly deserves exile from government until a generation that supported, protected and perpetrated corruption is outgrown; how the PN stays afloat; whether it’s time for a third, [...]

THE SUNDAY TIMES: When the time for Joseph comes

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2020-07-05T11:39:34+02:00Sun, 5th Jul '20, 11:39|

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "It’s hard to find an accurate translation of the specific meaning of “ma npaxxuhomx” when it is used in the local political context. It literally means one should not act in a way that gives pleasure to the enemy. That does not merely mean ‘let us not [...]

PODCAST: News of the death of the passport scheme has been greatly exaggerated

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2020-07-04T13:52:41+02:00Sat, 4th Jul '20, 13:52|

Emanuel Delia · News of the death of the passport scheme has been greatly exaggerated The government is desperate to look like it's cleaning its stables before the Moneyval sword falls in October. A cosmetic clean-up of the passport scheme was inevitable but the government is risking allowing Moneyval to see through the subterfuge and [...]

Something Arthur Azzopardi said

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2020-07-03T10:44:31+02:00Fri, 3rd Jul '20, 10:44|

Il-Koħħu’s former lawyer testified today at the inquiry into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s killing. He said he knew he was in danger but the police denied him security saying that if they were to give him protection everyone would know il-Koħħu was spilling the beans. But by then everyone knew il-Koħħu was spilling the beans. The [...]

Time for Anġlu to drink the Petrus

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2020-07-04T13:44:25+02:00Fri, 3rd Jul '20, 09:17|

The Commissioner for Public Standards has activated a section of the law that creates his office in cases where he finds a breach of ethics by an MP and thinks the MP should face a serious rap and a possible order to cough up some money. This hasn’t happened before because the Commissioner for Public [...]

Government by the inept

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2020-07-06T12:12:16+02:00Fri, 3rd Jul '20, 09:01|

A radio show of lackeys this morning praised Julia Farrugia Portelli for her BBC interview yesterday. They thought that her invitation to Boris Johnson to go jogging with her amounted to “a mic drop”. Truly a government of the mediocre for the mediocre. https://youtu.be/dXmYW26la2o   Julia Farrugia Portelli was an embarrassment on TV yesterday. She [...]

Glenn Bedingfield’s muddy sleuthing

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2020-07-02T10:35:22+02:00Thu, 2nd Jul '20, 10:33|

Glenn Bedingfield did not get Robert Abela’s memo yesterday. The party leader was telling the press outside the parliament building that being a friend, a fuck-buddy, a WhatsApp chatter or a business associate of Yorgen Fenech was ok if you stopped doing it the day he was charged with murder. Inside Parliament, Glenn Bedingfield was [...]

GUEST POST: Enigmatic, we Maltese

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2020-07-02T08:48:43+02:00Thu, 2nd Jul '20, 08:48|

We Maltese are peculiar, very odd people although God has been good to us. We go back to around 6,000 BC and we built the first free standing buildings in the world, more than 2,000 years before the Egyptians had even dreamt of the pyramids. Then in AD 60, destiny, or divine action, decided to [...]

GUEST POST: That probation clause

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2020-07-01T15:32:45+02:00Wed, 1st Jul '20, 15:32|

That the way the new Police Commissioner was selected was simply a bit of a smokescreen to salve consciences pricked by the Venice Commission’s Report is a given. That the PN MPs forewent their opportunity to grill the anointed one is understandable, if to some minds (mine included) perhaps unfortunate. That the it is up [...]

Limbo politics

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2020-07-01T15:16:36+02:00Wed, 1st Jul '20, 15:16|

Robert Abela promised high standards of governance but he’s only getting his ministers to jump over hurdles set about their ankles. They seem to be set that low in case they need to skip with their trousers down. He responded today to journalists’ challenges to ministers after Paul Caruana Galizia’s tweet a few days ago [...]

PODCAST: The privilege of fighting privilege

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2020-07-01T12:20:10+02:00Wed, 1st Jul '20, 12:20|

Listen to the article here or scroll down for the transcript: Emanuel Delia · The Privilege To Fight Privilege Like any good thing parliamentary privilege can be abused. But if it’s taken away, our democracy will die a little bit more. Parliamentary privilege comes up ever so often when someone alleges an MP has abused [...]

Hope

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2020-07-01T15:07:08+02:00Wed, 1st Jul '20, 09:14|

Thirteen migrants presently stuck in Libya, represented by Paul Borg Olivier and Eve Borg Costanzi, yesterday filed in court a judicial protest against the government anticipating a possible action under the European Convention of Human Rights. The 13 include 4 women, one of whom is the mother of a two-and-a-half-year-old child. Along with another 38 [...]

GUEST POST: The rise and fall of a political star

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2020-07-01T07:53:36+02:00Wed, 1st Jul '20, 07:53|

A bad government cannot only be called as a ‘bad’ government; the real adjective should be this: Enemy! Yes, bad government is a real enemy for the country it governs, an enemy within! - Mehmet Murat Ildan   At the beginning of 2011 few in Malta had heard of Konrad Mizzi. Before entering politics he [...]

This is why we ask

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2020-06-30T11:07:42+02:00Tue, 30th Jun '20, 09:24|

The Chamber of Advocates was full of ire and wrath yesterday because this website has asked questions about Aron Mifsud Bonnici’s role in the Montenegro deal. Here’s why we’re confused. Look at this picture from November 2015 of Konrad Mizzi meeting his counterpart in Podgorica, Montenegro. The photo comes with an official statement by the [...]

Konrad Mizzi’s grubby hands in Pembroke

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2020-06-30T08:41:38+02:00Tue, 30th Jun '20, 08:41|

Three local councils, 10 NGOs and thousands of individuals are giving reasons to the Planning Authority why the ‘revised’ dB tower Pembroke plans ought to be rejected. Those objections are about height, density, waste, congestion, pollution, noise, light, land use: a huge range of planning reasons why the project should not be allowed. But there [...]

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