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I happened to chance across one such flourish last Tuesday. The topic seemed to be the events in Tunisia and Egypt. Fair enough, I thought, and in keeping with a programme on One earlier that day in which George Vella and a guest whose name escapes me discussed the same with much erudition.

Not so our man from Oxford. Disclaimer in place (“this may sound crude”), he proceeded to lecture us how Malta should ask what’s in it for us. The logic apparently was that “the national interest should come first” and that “we can’t expect favours from anyone”. Whatever that means, my reading was that the world and all that it inherit exists to service us, Malta.

I wish I could dismiss Grixti as a piece of Oxonian eccentricity. Problem is he’s in some rather noticeable company. It was Joseph Muscat who first came up with the spark that Malta “stands to gain” (said in English just like some people say ‘għamilt is-sex’ to imagined respectable effect) from what’s happening in Tunisia and Egypt.

The trick, you see, is to “launch the biggest possible tourism promotion campaign”.

I can’t understand how someone who ascribes to himself the highest principles of statesmanship can be allowed to get away with this. There are at least four solid reasons why Muscat’s statement deserves to be savaged, savaged again, and then savaged some more.

First, the supreme bad taste that borders on the callous. One analogy would be an undertaker who unleashes a massive advertising campaign following, say, an earthquake or a flood. Perfectly rational, some might argue, but also horribly insensitive and probably counterproductive. No one wants to have it rubbed in that their misfortunes may be other people’s gains, least of all when these misfortunes include death, injury, and social chaos.

Even if we assume – for a second – that Muscat’s thinking is sound, point is he should never have voiced it. Hypocrisy, political correctness, and good taste are different species. The ability to tell them apart is the least one can expect of a public figure of such high standing.

Second, fuzzy economic thinking. Muscat had barely finished beaming when the global oil price touched the dreaded $100 mark. Egypt is not a major producer but it is home to a certain ditch called the Suez Canal. It’s not small and it’s also been there for almost 150 years – no excuses for not noticing it. Incredibly, political instability in Egypt tends to push up oil prices. More astonishingly, high oil prices do no good to tourism.

This is just one of many acrobatic feats of economic thinking that the current situation invites. The upshot is that no one, least of all an average lad holed up in an office in Ħamrun, is in a position to make the simple equation ‘Bad politics in Egypt = Good tourism in Malta’. Simple equations go with simple situations or complex situations analysed by monumental brains the likes of patent officers in Bern. Neither is the case here.

Third, a sort of gung-ho understanding of tourism and marketing. Muscat seems to be novel to the notion that ‘massive tourism publicity campaigns’ cost stacks of cash. As such they ought to be based on long-term strategy and sound planning, rather than knee-jerk reactions to highly unstable events the outcome of which is at this point is anybody’s guess.

I’m not an expert on tourism and marketing. But I dare say that throwing time and money at political instability would be rash to say the least. In any case, tourist markets tend to develop and take shape over time. Unleashing thoughtless publicity at them, unleashing whatever at anything in general actually, is likely to end up a marvellous dog’s dinner.

Third, what I can only call ‘hyper-nationalism’. As you read this, Muscat is probably reminding the gathered PL delegates how progressive he is, how sparkling and fresh and refreshing his new way of doing politics is.

Not really I’m afraid. Muscat’s mindset seems to be closer to that old and rotten chestnut called ‘Malta first and foremost’ than to progressive ideas of cosmopolitan democracy.

Even the most philistine of progressive thinkers would concede that Malta should leave publicity aside for a second and concentrate on its tiny contribution to stability in the region. But no, let them cut each other’s throats while we make hay.

Fourth, Muscat’s unfortunate choice of words betrays an economic model usually associated with bearded socialists of the ancient school or peasants (used here in the actual rather than the metaphorical snotty sense). Put simply, resources are imagined as a zero-sum game or one of ‘limited good’, in which one’s gain is necessarily another’s loss (and vice versa).

It doesn’t seem to cross Muscat’s mind that stability in the region would likely bring more tourists to Egypt, Tunisia and Malta. Limited-good thinking ordains that it’s rather a case of either/or. If not Egypt all the better, Malta it is. Enough to give contemporary economists a major heart attack.