The Panama Papers affair is bigger than Malta. Much much bigger. The data leaked from the offices of Mossack Fonseca covers decades of information and has an effect on people worldwide. Rich people worldwide. The social and political effects are only just beginning to snowball and the high...

Politics has reached a shallow point in Malta. We’ve all heard that phrase by now. Trust in politicians on the island has gravitated towards the same low point as has been shared for a long time and for different reasons on the rest of the continent. We’re slightly delayed –...

Take a step back. Try to disentangle your brain from the bombshell of Panamagate as it unfolded in Malta. Now take a look at Prime Minister Muscat and his reaction to the whole business over the last seven weeks. In Malta Panamagate came early, probably prematurely. Konrad Mizzi got an early...

  I. Stability is a partisan word Third parties, third ways. An online poll conducted by the paper Illum showed, among other things, that 14% of respondents would vote for a new party since they have no more faith in either the PN or the PL. Talk about a possible third way being a...

It’s been a long break. I had planned to post earlier but the events in Brussels have been at the back of my mind for some time now and had sapped at the will to write and make whatever little difference another opinion could make – especially in this world that gives the impression...

So the national protest against corruption is at three o’clock. That gives me ample time to feed you a few more thoughts and even to stop for a pasta al ragu’ half way through.  Much has been said about what the protest is for. Much more about whether the nationalist party...

It’s Sunday morning and the nationalist party is gearing up for what it dubs a national protest against corruption. The Sunday papers are full to the brim with opinion articles, spin and (if you look really hard) factual reports about the issue that has a name: Panamagate. Over the week...

  Matthew Vella did a good job grilling Konrad Mizzi about his “financial structure” based in New Zealand and Panama. ‘It’s a free world. Everyone can choose whatever they wish and should seek advice on what is best for them’ – that is the clip that Matthew Vella...

Muscat and his Panama collective are not getting on too well with the press right now. Unless you ask the right questions you will be faced with a barrage of childish word play and incosequential “answers” that are anything but. When none of the stonewalling and feigned...

‘The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum….’ Noam Chomsky, The Common Good Marelene Farrugia posted this quote on Facebook last week and I find it very apt to...

This weekend’s controversy is all about “conversion”. It must have been the proximity of the feast of Saint Paul. Just to put you in the bigger picture the government published on the 15th of  December a draft law that aims “to prohibit conversion therapy as a deceptive act or...

So it turns out that Mario Philip Azzopardi is not the most congenial person to work with. And that, it seems, is putting it mildly. It is ironic that of all the “meritocratic” appointments under the present government it is Azzopardi who joins the magisterial nominees in the eye...