Prime Minister turns up 90 minutes late for dinner he himself was hosting, while delegates were told to turn up one hour early

As though the invitation card itself were not bad enough, the prime minister and Mrs Muscat turned up just after 8.30pm to the CHOGM Business Forum dinner which they themselves were hosting, when their guests were invited for 7pm.

Newspaper reports say that they turned up at 8pm, but Maltese guests who were there waiting say they checked their watches when the Muscats arrived at it was just after 8.30pm.

To make matters considerably worse, the time given to delegates on the events programme was 6pm, so they naturally assumed that this was a correction of the time given on the invitation card. They left their hotels at 5.15pm to be there punctually for 6pm, and then their hosts turned up at 8.30pm, which means they were sitting around for two and a half hours waiting for him to turn up.

How much more of this are we going to have to contend with? Meanwhile, Joe Mizzi was shopping for clothes at Primark and Top Shop on Oxford Street with his personal assistant Mariella Agius, and carrying her numerous shopping bags (fortunately for him, there is a photograph in which she is shown paying her own bill).

The Malta Independent tried to ask the prime minister why he did this, as he toured the fish market in Marsa, but his aides prevented journalists – who had been invited by the Office of the Prime Minister’s Department of Information itself – from asking questions.

What a bunch of charlatans.