Come on boys, come on girls

It is a shame - a big shame - that the European Commission and the EU Commissioner on the Environment are such a hopeless lot. They have decided to look the other way.

They know that Malta has blatantly ignored the spirit of the birds' directive, and yet they refuse to do anything about the clear and unquestionable disregard for it.

They have left the future of birds in spring to the Maltese public, who are now signing in droves to call for a referendum in spring.

If they think the Maltese cannot decide for themselves, they are bloody wrong.

I have no doubt that the required number will be collected by mid-December, and the electoral commissioner will have to ensure that the referendum is held to coincide with the next elections of note (the European parliamentary elections).

"Come on boys, come on girls..." let's vote and get the hunters out of our spring calendar. And let us send a message to the political class that we mean business.

Now I speak not only as an opinion writer and a media man, but as a former chairman and a founder of Ornis, and someone who knows how the government of Malta literally misled the European Commission.

Yes I choose my words very carefully: misled the commission.

So Martin Bugelli, please clip this sentence and send it off to the Commission.

Perhaps they will make a note of it between their coffee break and one of their many lunch meetings.

I know this because I was then a consultant to the chief negotiator Richard Cachia Caruana, and I'm fully aware of what the Maltese government was supposed to accomplish (and more importantly, abide to).

I also know that the carnet de chasse reports are lies, based on fictitious entries that are tolerated by MEPA.

The recent reports of carnet de chasse for spring in hunting in Malta are a joke and should be taken for what they are: an exercise in fraud.

And yet, the government - and previous governments, for that matter - have continued to foment the impression that everything is under control when it is not.

It is as controlled as the government's frenzy to only appoint blue-eyed boys and girls to crucial jobs.

But back to hunting. If Joseph Muscat chickens out of denying 34,000 signatures - or shall we say 36,000 - the right to vote in conjunction with the European parliamentary election, then I will be the first to remind him of his democratic obligations.

Electoral commissioner Saviour Gauci is duty-bound to ensure that the process is swift, and that no problems are created to block this process.

This is a first for Malta. This is a referendum which is being called by the people, not by the political parties. It is a referendum that will open the way to popular democracy from the bottom up, and not the other way round.

It is one way of determining and showing the political class - both Muscat and Busuttil - that their politics of appeasement do not work in today's society anymore.

The hunters will of course complain that their members will spiral into a depression and drive themselves to suicide.

I honestly believe nobody should bother with these silly arguments.

They should learn to read... or better still, recite poetry or pick wild asparagus or even better still, read the weather.

Nothing can justify the fact that our hunters - who have held the political class to ransom - run amok in the countryside and shoot anything that moves.

It is a pity that the referendum does not call for a ban on hunting as a whole.

As more and more signatures are coming in, the news is alive with more appointments.

Peter Davies is out, but at least he was not a political appointee (he was head hunted by Ernst and Young and offered a wage commensurate with the going rate).

That half a million did not seem to bother the government of the day. But now, with the wages being offered to all these yuppie young Labourite ex-candidates, I really think that Davies's wage was worth it.

Davies was rude and stubborn but ultimately resolute, and his replacement will have to face the unions and the pilots if he wants to lift Air Malta into the skies. And more importantly: he will learn not to listen to politicians.

It will be difficult of course... given that he was appointed by politicians in the first place, it'll be hard to resist their 'advice'.

It is just like the judiciary: they are all appointed by the political class and are very conscious of the implications of their decisions.

That, I'm sure, is a tall order, and though I wish him well, I have to say that if he does succeed, I will be very surprised indeed.

Really, the only reason that Joseph Muscat does not lose his supremacy is because Simon Busuttil fails to inspire and will be remembered for what he is.  And more importantly, because everyone cannot quite forget how meritocracy was treated under Fenech Adami and Gonzi. One cannot forget that when the Nationalists accuse Muscat of taking everyone for a ride, they remind me of a prostitute lecturing about promiscuity.

Muscat is wrong. But I am not willing to take any lectures from Simon, or Beppe or Mario de Marco. I have no problem sitting down listening to some new faces like Ryan Callus, but I cannot live with the double standards of the Opposition.

Under Muscat's watch, there has not been a single call for a bloody chief executive and really, all this talk of "Malta Tagħna Llkoll" is turning out to be downright offensive: a sick joke that won't go away.

It is sad that Muscat believes he can get away with murder.

But he really shouldn't push his luck too far.