[Daphne – Your friends must be dull-witted and gullible. Her entire family votes Labour and this time round, her entire extended family did too. Kindly remember that I grew up in Stella Maris parish, Sliema, and so I have never made the all-too-common assumption that people who look and sound like Miss Sullivan vote PN. It’s a non sequitur. They are Labour through and through, and the only reason Miss Sullivan pretends otherwise is because until last year it was considered infra dig to be Labour among her chosen circle. Now that it is no longer infra dig (it is, actually, again – but people like that are slow on the uptake) she has come out of the closet. She is about as ‘PN’ as her rabidly lifelong Mintoffian best friends Anthony Sultana, Joe Fountain and Carina Camilleri – all of whom grew up in Mintoffian homes and never stopped voting Labour themselves.]

Of course he will never admit this ; if he does he will be negating the reason for his existence and that of his party of dangerous fools ; he knows what he’s talking about – he associates with – and is himself – Maltese people of no calibre .

What Minister Scicluna said is of great concern. How can people say “how brave to admit a mistake was made”? It raises more questions than it answers.

Who was responsible for the marketing? Who advised the prime minister, if he is one to take advice, to be the main spearhead of the project and lead the marketing of the scheme in London and Miami?

When was the marketing of the scheme deemed to be a mistake, before or after the prime minister went globetrotting to sell it? I intentionally call it a scheme as that is what it is – a very cheap scheme to collect easy money by selling something which is not ours to sell: access to Schengen.

We cannot blame Henley and Partners, or is it ah emm Associates Something, as they made it very clear that they proposed the programme be tied in with investment.

If it was not Henley and Partners then who was it who decided to push this through and market it for what everyone in Malta and overseas, except the Cabinet and those who cannot think, made it out to be?

Who is to carry political responsibility for the damage that has already been caused to our reputation by this “mistake” which had our Minister of Finance squirming in his seat in Brussels, trying to defend the indefensible?

Whoever within government decided to push ahead with this, knowing as the Minister himself confessed, that this is wrong?

The overnment have defended the position they took as they did not wish to wait for the fruits of investment made but wanted cash up front instead.

This approach indeed makes the government sound desperate to collect funds, which lays to rest Minister Scicluna’s ridiculous assertion that the money is really not needed for budget purposes. It is.

The minister had the option to leave it out which he did not, unless of course this was another “mistake”.

It being the Christmas season, I believe we should all pitch in to buy each cabinet member a shovel, a big one preferably, so they can each dig a deep, deep hole and well, you know the rest.

Because if they don’t do that, we are going to end up in an even bigger one ourselves.

Scicluna made it clear he doesn’t have access to the details of the scheme.

He’s also irritated at being a finance minister who’s had the key bill to improve finances removed from his portfolio. Effectively a power vacuum.

Something will have to give, Muscat won’t be able to carry on like this for another four years.

He’s fallen for his thing, use, abuse and discard, with cabinet members.

Godfrey Farrugia’s another one, Louis Grech picking the pieces, when he can, and our Gozitan minister a constant target on L-Orizzont.

And that’s not mentioning the backbench. Discord between Fearne and Parnis, Justyne Caruana mocking Refalo and Marlene Farrugia ‘watching closely’. An exceptional number requires strict control and regimented work.

One wonders what Muscat’s plan is, apart from going to the gym. Roadmaps tend to be fixed affairs, no contingency, comfortable. I don’t see him dynamically capable when it happens.

And ‘Henley & something’ really! When one has to ALSO hide behind the excuse of loss of mental acuity, in a profession where mental acuity is a must, than one has really hit rock bottom.

It seems that some surprise by being great, others by sinking to new lows.