Giovanna Debono should resign her seat immediately

I am sick to the gills of politicians in this country behaving as though our standards should be those of the lowest level – Italy’s – rather than the highest.

Italy is one of the least democratic countries in Europe, and is a country riddled and infested with crime networks more powerful than the government.

Step down, Mrs Debono. Clear a space for the new. You shouldn’t have stood for election again two years ago anyway – you were beyond stale and your time was up.

Didn’t you give an interview some months ago saying that you would be retiring from politics when the general election comes round again?

Well, do everybody a favour and retire now.

Sadly, the electorate can’t make the same demand of Ninu Zammit, who stepped away from the polls before his wrong-doing became known.

And Michael Falzon was voted out of parliament almost 20 years ago.

As for John Dalli, clearly the owners of Malta Today (for remember always that there are two of them and not one) think his wrong-doing, though perpetrated at an international level, is of a lesser order than the home repair jobs carried out by Giovanna Debono’s husband for her constituents, using public money.

They even think that Mr and Mrs Debono’s fiefdom corruption is more worthy of shock-horror-scandal than the fact that two cabinet ministers concealed amounts of up to $3.2 million while sitting in government.

But not everybody has an agenda the way the owners of Malta Today do. I, for one, think that the lot of them are disgusting, cheap and betrayers of public trust – not just Giovanna Debono and the sidekick husband in her ministry, but John Dalli, Ninu Zammit and Michael Falzon.

I grew to adulthood under the governments of Dom Mintoff and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, watching the corruption and abuse perpetrated by a retinue of ghastly cabinet ministers that included the Fat Controller Joe Grima, Karmenu Vella Il-Guy, Alex Sceberras Trigona l-AST and Herr Flick Leo Brincat, among others some of whom are now dead.

And look at them now. One is the prime minister’s Special Envoy to the World Tourism Organisation, another is EU Commissioner for the Environment, another Malta’s envoy to the World Trade Organisation, and the last is cabinet minister for the Environment.

And do you know why this was possible in Malta just as it would have been possible in impossibly corrupt Italy? Because we tolerate abuse and corruption, and have lower expectations of our politicians and set poorer standards for them than they do even in our neighbouring Mafia-riddled state.

The future of the Nationalist Party lies in not becoming like the Labour Party: an ark weighed down by corrupt dinosaurs from the past, resurfacing after three decades to take up public office again. Get rid of them now, permanently. Send them to Labour if Labour will have them (they’ve already taken John Dalli and Michael Falzon, and given Ninu Zammit an amnesty).

#Sickofthebloodylotofthem