Doorstepped outside the bunker

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2020-02-06T14:29:50+01:00Thu, 6th Feb '20, 14:29|

Do watch this classic Jacob Borg interview with Adrian Delia on his way into the office this morning. Adrian Delia looks beat. He’s disheveled, slouched, squinting and logorrheic. And he doesn’t even have the energy and presence of mind to realise how pathetically pointless his deflections are. The fact that Jacob Borg is taller than [...]

It’s falling apart

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2020-02-06T14:12:53+01:00Thu, 6th Feb '20, 14:12|

The leadership of the Labour Party last November had a problem on their hands. The party leader was extremely popular with their supporters such that in surveys anyone who voted Labour said they trusted Joseph Muscat. But he was implicated in a murder cover-up that had engulfed the government’s agenda for two years. The party [...]

It’s not Jason that is standing alone after all

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2020-02-06T11:47:45+01:00Thu, 6th Feb '20, 11:47|

A statement by the PN Parliamentary Group set out the numbers. 17 of 30 members of the Parliamentary Group has told him to leave. That’s a larger majority than it looks because the complement of 30 includes 2 Members of the European Parliament that are not relevant for the President’s evaluation of whether Adrian Delia [...]

From tal-Barrani to Brussels. And Back Again.

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2020-02-06T11:38:04+01:00Thu, 6th Feb '20, 11:38|

Robert Abela ruled that Owen Bonnici did not need to resign after he was found to have breached the right to free expression in a case I brought against him over the systematic removal of flowers and candles from the protest site opposite the law courts demanding justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia. When he gave [...]

GUEST SERIES: The Subjection of the Social Sector (Part 2)

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2020-02-06T12:17:58+01:00Thu, 6th Feb '20, 09:52|

This four-part series is written by a retired professional who keeps tabs on what is going on in the social sector and particularly on developments in the public social work services sector. None of the people mentioned in this series have any clue about what is being written about them. Their permission to be mentioned [...]

There’s nothing to reflect

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2020-02-06T09:41:20+01:00Thu, 6th Feb '20, 09:41|

A piece in The New Yorker last night reacted to Senator Mitt Romney breaking ranks with his party and voting alone with the Democrats to convict Donald Trump. The author of the piece recalled a commentary by then Junior Senator John Kennedy in a book he had written in the 1950s. In that commentary Kennedy [...]

UAE officials cancel December 17 Black meeting with Europol at the last minute: anything to do with Joseph Muscat’s Dubai trip?

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2020-02-05T17:04:12+01:00Wed, 5th Feb '20, 16:34|

Superintendent Antonovitch Muscat told the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry that the United Arab Emirates have not cooperated in the investigation to get to the bottom of the 17 Black/Hearnville/Tillgate revelations. It is not a dissimilar complaint from the one made by then Magistrate Aaron Bugeja who got no answer from Dubai when he was trying [...]

That’s one thing Adrian Delia has that Robert Abela doesn’t: the police are investigating him

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2020-02-05T16:07:19+01:00Wed, 5th Feb '20, 16:07|

In court today Superintendent Ray Aquilina confirmed that Adrian Delia is the subject of a criminal investigation into money laundering. The case was raised by Daphne Caruana Galizia in what would prove to be one of the last cases of her life when she revealed that years before when practicing as a lawyer Adrian Delia [...]

Gatekeepers

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2020-02-06T08:40:32+01:00Wed, 5th Feb '20, 16:06|

It never gets easier listening to men who plotted to kill a woman in cold blood because they did not like what she wrote. Melvyn Theuma’s testimony speaks of Joseph Muscat’s and Keith Schembri’s annoyance with Daphne Caruana Galizia. Recordings played out in court ring out the voice of Yorgen Fenech speaking callously about the [...]

GUEST SERIES: The subjection of the social sector (Part 1)

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2020-02-05T09:20:12+01:00Wed, 5th Feb '20, 09:20|

This four-part series is written by a retired professional who keeps tabs on what is going on in the social sector and particularly on developments in the public social work services sector. None of the people mentioned in this series have any clue about what is being written about them. Their permission to be mentioned [...]

GUEST POST: Can the PN be a solution?

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2020-02-05T09:07:48+01:00Wed, 5th Feb '20, 09:07|

Continues from the first part of this article, linked here. Louis Galea’s recent indicative outline of his party reform proposals, that distinguish him as a creative political practitioner, and Claudio Grech’s intelligent version that complements same, could be a flow of fresh air were it not for the concomitant numerous disturbing and worrying publicly expressed [...]

It’s still about Cardona, Mizzi, Schembri and Muscat

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2020-02-03T08:39:40+01:00Mon, 3rd Feb '20, 07:59|

Robert Abela is throwing Jimmy Magro and Kristy Debono under a bus so we can watch that spectacle while Joseph Muscat’s gang runs away. The government will push buttons that were left outstanding by Joseph Muscat’s administration that should please people who have no time for corruption, large or small. Today’s stories about Jimmy Magro [...]

One-party rule

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2020-02-02T10:52:42+01:00Sun, 2nd Feb '20, 10:51|

Adrian Delia’s press conference yesterday delivered cogent and compelling criticism of the government pushing forward the argument (and the knowledge of facts) about the hospitals scandal. The coverage in the press was considerable. The information that was published was pertinent, even damning. The subject was relevant. And yet this morning, no one is talking about [...]

Times leader calls for Owen Bonnici’s removal

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2020-02-02T09:35:07+01:00Sun, 2nd Feb '20, 09:35|

The editorial of The Sunday Times is impatient with Robert Abela's mixed messages about good governance. The impatience is raised today after Abela said 'he saw no reason' for dismissing Owen Bonnici after the court found the minister breached fundamental human rights of protesters. "Has Abela not learnt the most valuable lesson to come out [...]

THE SUNDAY TIMES: The breach birth

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2020-02-02T09:22:06+01:00Sun, 2nd Feb '20, 09:21|

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "This was never about the flowers per se. This was not a dispute over a garden centre. This was about the attempt to suppress a protest intended to pressure the institutions to reach and punish the criminals, including those operating within the structures of the State, that [...]

The next battle against arbitrary power

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2020-02-01T15:43:53+01:00Sat, 1st Feb '20, 15:43|

The parliamentary chamber has a viewing gallery for “strangers”, that’s you and me who have not been elected to a seat in the legislative body of the land. Parliament’s rules say people who are not members of parliament have no place in the areas reserved for members and staff. The area reserved for non-members is [...]

Pride

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2020-01-30T14:36:49+01:00Thu, 30th Jan '20, 14:36|

Today’s court decision finds my fundamental rights were breached. But that’s just a legal nicety. The court effectively found the rights of Daphne’s family were breached. Yet another way in which the state repaid them for the sacrifice of their mother, wife, sister and daughter. It found the rights of all activists and protesters were [...]

Instrument of division

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2020-01-30T13:07:04+01:00Thu, 30th Jan '20, 12:51|

The Constitutional Court today charged Owen Bonnici with using the Great Siege Memorial "as an instrument of division". This is especially significant and needs specific remarks. Owen Bonnici's arguments in his own defence in his case were that the memorial needed to be restored and cleaned up every day because of the damage he alleged [...]

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