The Justice Minister’s article in today’s Times of Malta is a national embarrassment. People at the Venice Commission must be reading it and rolling on the floor with laughter. What a proper buffoon. I’ve already written why I think Edward Zammit Lewis lost the argument here. I feel no inclination to repeat myself just because [...]

Edward Zammit Lewis is reported to be objecting to Police Superintendent George Cremona being made head of the asset recovery bureau. That’s an office that largely exists as a legal fiction rather than in reality. It is meant to seize objects owned by criminals acquired from the proceeds from their crimes. Typically, this would be [...]

Minister Miriam Dalli called a press conference to announce her vision for a new undersea electricity cable connecting Malta to Sicily. This is not something that is actually going to happen in this legislature. So consider this a Labour Party press event funded by the government. There would have been no harm in the Labour [...]

Whenever consequences are demanded by the angry and lonesome few with a conscience left in them, the government buys time by claiming confidence in the institutions. When it is the government that the institutions are supposed to investigate and expose, the government’s confidence in the process is far from reassuring. Yet, one cannot ignore the [...]

Joseph Muscat and Labour’s chief selling point in their aggressive and expensive election campaign of 2013 was the promise to slash utility bills. Labour presented their offer of a new face for local politics, one Konrad Mizzi, a smooth faced newcomer, gracing every press conference, every debate and every advert. He sweet-talked his way with [...]

Last Sunday I wrote a piece about needing a government that plans for a new economy that makes sense in a world pushing back on climate change. I called for imagination to outgrow our dependence on the evasion of tax levied by other countries. I pointed out that the givens of our past economic successes [...]

Four years ago today I looked for the first time at the audience measuring tool that comes with a blogging website. The previous morning, I had published my first ever post in a Google blog app hurriedly put together for me by a tech savvy colleague at work. The piece, called unimaginatively “It hurts, doesn’t [...]

I trust this is sufficient notice to remind members of the Board of the Planning Authority that the Board is due to meet this Thursday at 10am to discuss the application by the dB Group to “develop” (as they insist calling the erection of concrete Titans on relatively unspoiled land) the former ITS site in [...]

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "We can raise our angry fists at these realities of the changing world and stubbornly cling to an economic model that, like slavery or textiles, is past its date, or we can get real, be part of the global deal for reform and find a new role [...]

On 30th May 2020, in an adjournment speech in Parliament, Jason Azzopardi said: “Konrad Mizzi is supposed to be under investigation, which means he should be arrested over money laundering and corruption. Instead he is hatching a plan with Robert Abela to be given a guarantee that the new police commissioner will not arrest and [...]

The police and the prosecution service are attempting to persuade a court that Keith Schembri and his associates committed a list of crimes in the Allied Newspapers imbroglio that included defrauding the State entity Malta Enterprise. Some of the money to pay for Allied’s new printing press came from taxpayers. An internal Malta Enterprise report [...]

I fully agree with what Prime Minister Robert Abela said about the Degiorgio brothers. It is true that they are criminals and hardened ones. Nobody can deny it and the history of their alleged crimes seems never-ending. And I agree that they should not be pardoned. I also had, once before, agreed with the prime [...]

https://youtu.be/BgPYkMwATgA

I don’t think anyone will believe me when I say there isn’t even a shred of sarcasm in what I’m about to write. Give the passenger ferry boats a chance. Every new means of public transport will, unfailingly, fail to meet the public’s expectations. Never mind the hyperbolic expectations of over-enthusiastic politicians who justify their [...]

The Maltese government must be earning itself some form of reputation at the Council of Europe’s democracy through law commission. It’s known as the Venice Commission and it is famous for its exquisitely painful politeness. At some point, we can fully expect them to lose it. Whenever the Maltese government gets stuck with some legal [...]

Some 25 years ago, my father was approached to contest the elections as a candidate for one of the two main parties. It made sense because my father was a very well respected professional and at the time his regular clientele covered most of what is today known as the Northern Harbour District. So picture [...]

How do you spot a criminal gang when you see one? What sort of crimes come into your head? Drugs, bribery, corruption, extortion, fraud, armed robbery, guns, bombs, money laundering, cryptocurrency, murder? And where do you begin when there are so many pigs at the bloody trough? If all animals are equal but some are [...]

First, a disclaimer. Let it be known, for the avoidance of any doubt, that nothing I write here is intended to suggest that the Degiorgio brothers, as indeed everyone involved in killing Daphne Caruana Galizia, should serve any punishment which is short of what the law says they deserve. Second, as with all lessons we [...]

This article was first published in the current issue of Money Magazine. The Magazine can be found here. My column in this magazine is not famous for optimism. Admittedly, cynicism, skepticism, and warbling doubts about the future are rarely highlights of a business magazine. The fact is we haven’t walked through the gauntlet of our [...]

This interview was broadcast on 103 last Saturday. Read Newsbook's summary of the interview here.