The wolves of Malta

I have something of a fetish for reminding people of their incredible inconsistencies. So you will have to bear with me if I lash out at Prime Minister Joseph Muscat for having embraced 'Labour bête noir' Lou Bondi and making him one of his pets. But it is not Muscat who is to blame here.

In 1987, upon taking power, Eddie Fenech Adami did just that - he reached out to his critics and he neutralised them by integrating them into the PN fold. 

They ranged from dirty and criminal police officers, to very shitty mega businessmen to the political canvassers of his adversaries. Many of these people not only merged into the crowd, they also became part of the PN political machine. 

All modern - or 'semi-modern' - politicians learn the art of compromise and use it to survive and succeed.

I would guess the autobiography - ghost-written by a Times journalist - does not scrutinise Fenech Adami's inconsistencies, U-turns and mistakes. Don't get me wrong... I'm sure the book is worth a read. But at the end of the day, nothing beats biographies penned by discerning journalists.

But I'm not here to lambast Fenech Adami's book. I have not yet read it and I eagerly await a free copy, because as you have already noted I am very reluctant to donate a cent to that institution by the name of The Times - even more so now, when I'm aware they face some serious financial pitfalls.

What I want to talk about here is how all politicians take us journalists for granted... and that applies to all and sundry within the political class.

First of all, if Muscat thinks that his trip to watch Milan does not have any news value, then he is missing the point. News is not determined by who smells the coffee, but who casts the dice. In this case, Simon Busuttil as Opposition leader, through his party media, revealed that as he was being taken to the cleaners in front of the parliamentary privileges committee, his complainant was watching a football game.

That, in a news sense, was very relevant - so reporting it was a no-brainer.

Yet, in our enthusiasm to report such an episode, the media conveniently failed to revisit what the privileges complaint was all about in the first instance.

It was a complaint originating from the prime minister, after a Simon Busuttil declaration in parliament that he (the PM) had intervened with the new commissioner to halt criminal procedures against John Dalli.

That led the PM to take up the matter with the privileges committee, asking the committee to castigate Busuttil for expounding 'an invention'.  

So in our haste to watch Muscat land in Italy - and appear distraught after a rather disappointing Milan match - we forgot to look into the nature of Busuttil's allegation.

First of all, to be noted is Busuttil's visceral dislike for John Dalli... which is to be expected, considering that Dalli was always at loggerheads with Richard Cachia Caruana, one of Busuttil's mentors.

I say allegation, because Busuttil of course has not come forward with any evidence other than the screaming and hysterics of his sycophant David Agius - a PN backbencher who, apart from serving as whip, has other noble pastimes such as plagiarism.

The truth of the matter is that Busuttil wishes to give the impression that come 9 March 2013, the Maltese police force turned into a political machine and before that it was in fact run on the principles of Maria Goretti.

Now, I have no problem sitting down with PN leader Simon Busuttil with a TV camera fixated on my lips and another on his eyes, where I would effectively jot down the numerous occasions of speculative political interference between 1987 and 2013. And I say speculative because like the Kessler - or shall I say Inspector Clouseau - report, I have no evidence, but only circumstantial observations. Which in December 2012 led the police to arrest, to much fanfare and drama, of a former EU commissioner and Eddie Fenech Adami Cabinet minister for some 12 years.

To give the impression that between 1987 and 2013, the political class and Castille - along with their respective home affairs ministers - never interacted in some way with the police and never held their hand is not only incorrect, but downright deceptive.

I need only mention a few cases: the Queroz case, the Zeppi l-Ħafi case and - for want of a better example - the Lorry Sant case itself. Not to mention so many other cases which were completely ignored.

What is even more diabolical is that the John Dalli case before the election is a perfect example of a political crime case. There were no effective grounds to arraign him.

Last Thursday, on a French national radio station, Jose Bove - a former French presidential candidate - pointed out that Dalli's case was a political one, catalysed by the tobacco lobby.

In Malta, nobody even dares make this assumption, or stand up for Dalli. In Malta, nobody has even realised what a fiasco Tonio Borg was and how watered-down the new tobacco directive has turned out to be.

Now, I am not a lawyer like Simon Busuttil - I am in fact a journalist and I plan to stay that way - but I'm sure I know more about criminal law than Busuttil. There is a basic thing we need to remember here: the concept of 'innocent until proven guilty'. That evidence has to be factual, verifiable and not circumstantial. There was nothing substantive in the Kessler report. I won't go there again.

To turn the tables round and suggest that there was political interference without an iota of proof, beguiles the political mind of Busuttil.

But back to the privileges committee. Parliamentary privileges committees are indeed kangaroo courts - as plagiarist David Agius has attested this week - but I wonder why his government did not terminate them and throw them out of the window. Because for 25 years, the administration, which had so many good points, discarded many of its pledges and simply slept on them.

The truth is: how can a committee made of parliamentarians, serve as judge and jury against another parliamentarian? That is the question.

Having said all this, it's clear from this week's events that Muscat is underestimating the Opposition and the media. 

The investigation that led to the revelations that Enemalta theft was finally pinpointed and the source of the theft uncovered was basically turned around after the PM's declaration that those who had cheated and bribed would be given a sort of amnesty.

In seconds, the story was no longer the fact that the government could potentially bring in a staggering €240 million in unpaid dues, but that the government was issuing a blanket amnesty.

'Shame on you,' cried Busuttil.

The very fact that the previous minister responsible for Enemalta, Tonio Fenech, had failed to act was of course not of news value. Neither was the fact that the introduction of smart meters by Austin Gatt was in fact a messy affair and that the 'impregnable' meters were in fact not fool-proof at all.

Just like that, the exploits of the government were turned against it.

And why?

Because Muscat is taking the media and the Opposition for granted and not mapping out what, in fact, their reaction will be.

Instead of waiting for an event to happen, someone at Castille should be asking themselves: "Hey, guys, if we do this, what will they say? Will we catch any flak for it?"

The Labour government, unlike the Nationalist administration, cannot get away with murder. It has raised people's expectations so high that people expect it to be near-perfect.

It doesn't really matter that in the past 25 years, every rule in the 'book of ethics' was broken... "those were the other guys," the reasoning goes.

Somehow, someone needs to tell Muscat that Busuttil is going to do his job, even though everyone appreciates that he represents a political party that does not have the moral high ground to preach to anyone on how to run this country.