From my article in The Sunday Times today: "Hours after the election of a leader who railed against The Establishment within the party, the victor becomes The Establishment and writes the official history before it happens. Dissent that was branded liberating in the hands of the rebel is quickly branded treacherous in the hands of [...]

Jean Pierre Debono understandably vented his fury at Malta Today for reporting this morning that he had forged signatures as part of the PN leadership election process. Malta Today was reporting on a redacted leaked report of the electoral commission. The commission reprimanded him but it did not accuse him of, let alone found, he [...]

The Times today reports that Adrian Delia appears no longer to hold out hope any of the by-elected MPs will make way for his co-option. He is therefore now having to turn to MPs elected in their own right to give up their seat and make way for the nail-biting proposition that their elected replacement [...]

Malta Today is reporting that people acting on instructions of the party leader have met MP Ivan Bartolo and in seeking to persuade him to quit his parliamentary seat to allow for Adrian Delia’s co-option, offered Mr Bartolo a salaried consultancy position that would make up for the loss of his parliamentary earnings. Malta Today [...]

It would be reasonable to expect that at tonight’s PN meeting, the new leader announces his path to the office of Leader of the Opposition. Tomorrow is Independence Day and as an official of the state, an occupier of a ranking constitutional title, the Leader of the Opposition participates in the formal ceremonies of the [...]

Judge Antonio Mizzi decided today that Simon Busuttil’s arguments for him, the judge, to recuse himself from hearing the prime minister’s appeal from a lower court’s decision to order an investigation into the Panama scandal is heard in an open court. It was the right decision. The contrary would have been a travesty. It was [...]

Adrian Delia is now leader of the PN. Many expected this for some time. That expectation has peaked excitement and confidence in his supporters some of which leaked in bluster and spittle. His detractors felt dread and a sense of doom. Some of which leaked in bluster and spittle. And now the result is out, [...]

There’s no better day for the government to bury bad news than the leadership election in the opposition party. It is indeed remarkable than in the midst of election day, the PN found the presence of mind and the focus to not let Konrad Mizzi’s quite horrific threat to Air Malta employees pass without comment. [...]

A friend of mine had dinner with Eddie Fenech Adami a few days ago. “Chief”, he asked him, for the oldies will always call him ‘Kap’, “who should I be voting for?” After a pregnant silence – that dramatic pause for effect the consummate diplomat never drops even if he’s been out of business for [...]

I am no fan of arguments for cross-party consensus. I appreciate that negotiation can be productive where confrontation is not. But in political discourse, disagreement is essential to ensure transparency in argumentation, an honest pursuit for alternatives, and the avoidance of collusion between political forces at the expense of the public. A dialectical process is [...]

… is that there is only one of her. She has not been too far from the news for the past 30 years. She is, if you think about it, a more long-lasting feature of our scene than Alfred Sant, Lawrence Gonzi and others who invested their life to exist in the public eye. I [...]

Frank Portelli, erstwhile PN leadership candidate, is all over Facebook teaching us all a lesson in party loyalty and unity after losing an electoral race. He shows us how it should be done by firing grape-shot in the general direction of anyone he dislikes in the process hitting innocent bystanders like there’s no tomorrow. In [...]

We have come to accept as inevitable the interminable twists of court procedures which we are told exist to ensure justice where expediency and swiftness would suppress it. But sometimes it’s just a joke. The long-winded case on whether evidence of crimes presented to the courts connecting our senior politicians to the Panama revelations, ought [...]

I remember when radio stations were first liberalised in Malta. I remember Michael Frendo piloting the law through parliament. Eons ago now. But there was another eon that had just ended when the Nationalist Party was hounded like a para-military organisation on suspicion of possessing equipment it could use to communicate without the regime eavesdropping. [...]

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "People watching the war of words over Facebook are seeing arguments they became entirely familiar with in the run-up to the general election. There is admiration of contempt; rationalisation grounded in misguided loyalty; projection of original sin on any alternative; a shift of focus from the message [...]

For several months at least the computer system of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit worked with a simple log-in/password system for its security. Given the sensitivity of the money laundering investigations this Unit is responsible for that is staggering in itself. What is more amazing is that all staff shared a single password to log-in [...]

The persistent perception of our community is that people of African heritage who live here are a separate and distinct set of aliens corralled in an area lent to them because providing them with solid ground under their feet is Christian charity compared with leaving them to be swallowed up by the open sea. Inside [...]

The passport scheme is a pet hate for me: for reasons of principle, because I cannot conceive how citizenship can have a price tag; for reasons of reputation, because our European friends and allies are rightly annoyed about the implications on them of our little bargain sale; for reasons of social justice, because property prices [...]

See this editorial of the Corriere di Malta, an Italian language website for expats living here. The publication has expressed doubts about the sustainability of the growth of Malta’s properties for some time now. But they are taking their editorial concerns up a notch with this commentary, particularly now that it is witnessing quirky policy [...]