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I read this morning’s Times of Malta editorial that follows up Clyde Caruana’s recent remarks about the need to revolutionise Malta’s economic model. Leader says they should get on with it then. Fair enough. After all, as the editorial observes, there’s increasing consensus that we can’t go on like this. There’s a phrase in the [...]

Joseph Muscat does not like being forced to make choices. The man was prime minister, for crying out loud. That does things to the portion of your brain which is normally open to compromise. The sort of inebriating power he enjoyed atrophies the average intellectual capacity of normal people who live normal lives unable, as [...]

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "Whoever placed those stories in the Pakistani websites knew just what would happen. Fearne’s thundering claims of purity have been severely undercut. Anyone in the Labour Party who might have been tempted to rally around him has now been denied an untainted alternative to Muscat and Abela. [...]

The third so-called ‘state of the nation’ conference is being hosted by President George Vella today. From the official statement announcing the conference: “President Vella noted that the subjects planned for this year’s conference are all directly related to the citizens’ everyday life. These include the family, the media and its new challenges in society, [...]

I can't waste the mental energy to scramble for appropriate invective to appropriately address Malta's Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Holy See, His Excellency Frank Zammit, in reaction to this Facebook post of his. I am exhausted by all the levels I must count of how this is excruciatingly embarrassing, the diplomatic, the religious, the cultural, [...]

Pakistani website Global Village Space has quoted “leaked documents” which it says show that VGH’s Ram Tumuluri paid Carmen Ciantar a total of €443,500 Euros from Gozo International Medicare Ltd – part of the VGH group – in less than four months. The leaked documents were not published by the website. The payments are alleged [...]

I’m more interested in the reaction to yesterday’s incident on the Planning Authority website than in the incident itself. I’ll sum up the incident first, however, in case I need to bring you up to speed. The government offered €4 million to owners of town centre residencies that need repair work. The scheme lets you [...]

Photo: Consolidated Rescue Group Four international NGOs have published a joint statement accusing the Maltese authorities of breaking international law by forcefully dragging 500 migrants in distress in Malta’s search and rescue area back to Libya. Read it, especially for its detail because it is the level of detail that should inform your [...]

The small nations games are on and may the girls and boys in red have the best time and make their mothers and fathers proud. But the good will athletes are entitled to, should not be taken hostage by a government unable to do its job. Except for The Shift’s sharp reporting, the press has [...]

There’s an article in The Malta Independent today by Noel Grima which has the word ‘de-muscatification’ in its heading. It’s about how this country needs to reverse the policies of Joseph Muscat in order to start getting things right. It criticises Robert Abela for sticking to ‘continuity’ with the years of Muscat. There’s another article [...]

I like to preface every argument I dare make about transport issues with a lesson I was once given in person by Michael Portillo who introduced himself to a meeting of transport officials from all over the world as a former future prime minister of the UK. I worked in the transport ministry at the [...]

Konrad Mizzi ignored the auditor general’s questions about the botched hospitals privatisation while Joseph Muscat and Keith Schembri sent him non-answers. Darren Debono refused to testify against the bosses of the criminal gang he worked for even after he was pardoned for shooting at police officers trying to stop them robbing a bank. Yorgen Fenech [...]

Other things have happened since, so the small controversy after the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life’s decision not to investigate Arnold Cassola’s complaint about Kurt Farrugia’s and Paul Zahra’s failure to cooperate with the Auditor General has largely been forgotten already. But I was on holiday so bear with me while I catch up. [...]

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "The Batman is a symbol of hope for a cartoonist who has given up on the ability or willingness of ordinary forces of law to fight on the side of justice and lock up the supervillains that plague us. Of course, we can draw cartoons and read [...]

There are those who have alleged that our Prime Minister was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. What he definitely has in his mouth is his foot. ‘I have no right to try and condition or interfere with the ongoing investigative process’ were his words quoted by a local newspaper in reference to [...]