What you need to do to get back to politics

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2024-02-09T18:14:39+01:00Fri, 9th Feb '24, 18:14|

This is how former politicians who withdrew in disgrace find their way back into politics in this country. Rosianne Cutajar announced that she is withdrawing her lawsuits against Mark Camilleri who exposed her intimate conversations and evidence of her corrupt relationship with Yorgen Fenech, the man awaiting trial for killing Daphne Caruana Galizia. Now that [...]

It’s not that far, is it?

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2024-02-08T09:01:41+01:00Thu, 8th Feb '24, 09:01|

Times of Malta is reporting that a Russian criminal group has claimed responsibility for the severe DDOs attack the newspaper has suffered earlier this week. The group is threatening other Maltese websites, public and private. They describe the attacks as politically motivated. They have nothing against Malta and its people they say, but they are [...]

Murder on the Malta Express

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2024-02-02T08:31:48+01:00Fri, 2nd Feb '24, 08:31|

Yorgen Fenech’s trial has been delayed so that a report written by Europol investigators a few months after Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder is entered into the records of the case. The defence has the right to all evidence, even, and especially if, it exculpates the accused. This report does no such thing. It makes a [...]

Muscat bought a pink Cadillac

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2024-02-02T14:01:21+01:00Fri, 2nd Feb '24, 08:10|

The Maserati is just as boorish and just as obvious as the pink coupe Johnny Roastbeef bought his wife too soon after the Lufthansa heist in Goodfellas. Johnny, are you nuts?

Playing nice

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2024-01-31T14:24:50+01:00Wed, 31st Jan '24, 14:24|

Only one Maltese MP voted at a recent debate at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on encouraging European countries to legislate against SLAPP. That was Labour MP Cressida Galea who voted in favour of the adoption of the resolution. She also gave a speech on the subject at the assembly reported, presumably [...]

Forgotten friends

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2024-01-31T09:46:35+01:00Wed, 31st Jan '24, 09:46|

In 2019 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted on a resolution calling on Malta to get serious about investigating the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia and to start addressing the corruption, the weak institutions, the rotten governance, and the intrusion on journalists’ basic freedoms. Only a few members of the Assembly voted [...]

That’s what a threat looks like

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2024-01-30T11:50:49+01:00Tue, 30th Jan '24, 11:50|

Robert Aquilina filed a complaint with the police after a fan of Joseph Muscat, using an alias on Facebook, said he would pour acid on Robert Aquilina for sticking a sign to Joseph Muscat’s office door saying, “Joseph Muscat Prim Korrott”. The court found the man guilty of breaching Article 82A of the Criminal Code [...]

It’s re-education camps for me

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2024-01-29T11:36:03+01:00Mon, 29th Jan '24, 11:36|

Franco Debono has been fuming that I should be sent (up to) 18 months in prison for comparing his determined return to politics to an unpleasant medical condition. Robert Musumeci, well known for having the PN’s interests at heart, has been advising the PN to bring back Franco Debono because of his “moderate voice” and [...]

THE SUNDAY TIMES: Fascism is not okay

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2024-01-29T09:02:08+01:00Mon, 29th Jan '24, 09:02|

From my article in The Sunday Times yesterday "There’s little danger of Lowell becoming prime minister or dictator, though every vote he acquires is chilling in and of itself. The issue is not that a little publicity on a radio station talk show risks leading the way to a far-right takeover. Though the mainstreaming of [...]

State recapture

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2024-01-28T05:24:43+01:00Sat, 27th Jan '24, 05:38|

Briefly, Joseph Muscat’s grip on the country loosened at the end of 2019. The convulsions after the arrest of Yorgen Fenech shook the leadership of the Labour Party. Keith Schembri was arrested, briefly. Chris Cardona “suspended himself”, briefly. Konrad Mizzi moved from a minister’s office to a better paid government consultancy job. He held on [...]

In character

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2024-01-26T05:33:39+01:00Fri, 26th Jan '24, 05:33|

Neville Gafà was always odd, even for Labour. Somehow his proximity to Keith Schembri and Joseph Muscat gave him incredible access to power, completely out of proportion with his abilities. He always seemed out of his depth and yet, somehow, he enjoyed access to all manner of schemes. He was alleged to have taken massive [...]

Of unfortunate metaphors

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2024-01-23T15:20:33+01:00Tue, 23rd Jan '24, 15:20|

I could have used some other metaphor to describe Franco Debono’s periodic returns to the public scene. The one I used, lit up all manner of outrage. I could have called him a mushroom that sprouts back every time you clean it out, mould that blotches the roof after every rain. Or a particularly buoyant [...]

The one who eats the scene

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2024-01-22T10:52:40+01:00Mon, 22nd Jan '24, 10:52|

I remember Daphne writing about the plague of fragile men who must do more than inhabit your life, they must possess it. For them, politics and public life is vital, like air is for most people. They must consume the space around themselves with their real or imagined importance. They must have people speak of [...]

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