A plastic man in an orange tie (no, not Nick Clegg)

There's a man in Malta who wants my tie.

Nick Clegg is on the television as I speak. Not the real Nick Clegg, but the faux one, all got up in the most unbelievably vulgar tie in three shades of bright orange, giving his May Day speech on Super One.

With Gordon Brown hardly making for the most scintillating comparison, and David Cameron looking slightly under threat from the Liberal leader, Joseph Muscat, who is unable just to be what he is, has decided to model himself for the next few days on Clegg.

His problem is that Clegg would never wear a tie like that except to match an orange Lib-Dem backdrop or decorate his face with hair trimmed in the fashion favoured by perverts caught in Interpol shots.

And obviously, tie-bearer Jason Micallef is now no longer keeper of the closet because he’s consolidating his army at Super One and is damned if he’s going to give the boss any more style advice – or even think of him as the boss. To paraphrase Kurt the Coconut’s immortal words about Marisa Micallef: Joseph Muscat? He’s just a functionary.

I really find Muscat difficult to listen to. He’s just so shallow. Because he hasn’t got a clue what he’s talking about, and doesn’t mean it anyway, his delivery is monotonous and false, making him sound like an adult version of the priedka tat-tifel at Midnight Mass. The result is just as soporific.

There’s another problem. Hearing that oh-so-familiar Super One hack voice in the role of Leader of the Opposition has about the same effect on me as hearing Charlon Gouder as Labour leader in seven years’ time would do. Right now, I’m watching him make meaningless gestures while mouthing empty words, and all I can think of is him doing the same thing on that sorry show Made in Brussels, the one on which he told us, every week, how and why EU membership would destroy us, so please vote No. What poor judgement, honestly.

Now he’s just said how shocking it is that the zghir (because saying working-class/klassi tal-haddiema is not allowed any more) and the ‘mittilkless’ have to work to pay their bills. I mean, imagine that – working to pay your bills, eh? What a novel concept for Malta, the Land of Free, where the natives have become accustomed to getting everything for nothing or next to nothing so that they can spend what they earn on the stuff they want rather than the services they need.

What’s that I hear him say now? Oh yes, good grief. “People have to pay their water and electricity bills instead of buying things for their home.” Well, at least this time he hasn’t said that we’ve all been reduced to going out for a pizza instead of a steak on a Saturday night.

Is it my imagination, or are rather too many adults in Malta unbelievably childish, treating life like a giant playground full of freebies in which problems are completely unacceptable and effort is not required? I guess Joseph Muscat speaks for them, then.

He certainly has never had to make much of an effort at anything in his life, spoiled as he was from birth as the only child of older parents, rising to become the favourite of Alfred Sant and then sailing through to the party leadership despite being a Super One reporter and not a politician. He didn’t even have a seat in Parliament, and had to find a Useful Idiot to give his up.

He’s just said the word ‘mittilkless’ yet again. How tiresome. Who, in his view, is the upper class, given that if there is a ‘mittilkless’ then there must be an upper? Perhaps he thinks the upper class is stuffed full of people like Sandro Chetcuti, who make money in property and park their Ferrari outside Café Giorgio in Sliema to impress the local people.

I think I’ll turn the television off. I’ve just heard him say ‘mittilkless’ yet again and I just can’t stand it. He’s talking about unity while his party simmers with hatred and resentment and knows little other than spite and vindictiveness.

A balding ginger man in hair gel and an orange tie, working his jaw to speak because he has difficulty moving his lips, saying mehruga instead of mahruga and telling me about the ‘mittilkless’ to which I am supposed to belong and on whose behalf he speaks because we shouldn’t have to – horrors – pay bills instead of buying yet another flat-screen TV for the third child’s bedroom or running three cars per household instead of the usual five.

It’s just too much. I’m going to switch him off and head out to dinner. Oh, no need – the speech imqanqal u emozzjonat delivered to a sea of Maltese flags and EU emblems is over and Michelle, wearing a checked flasher-mac designed for a bracing walk in a light drizzle, has joined her husband on stage for the Innu Nazzjonali.

Hares Mulej at the ridiculous circus down here, and please do note that Muscat squeezes his eyes shut and works his jaw wide to sing the anthem, like a child in primary school, rather than keeping his eyes open and his mouth shut like a grown-up statesman.

Fortunately, we’re guests at a friend’s home, so that spares us the agonising choice between pizza, steak and using the washing-machine. As a result of the money we save, we might even be able to split a Margherita tomorrow and still be able to fill up the tank of at least one car. One day, when we’re upper class, we might be able to fill the other one too.

This article is published in The Malta Independent on Sunday today.