So Konrad Mizzi is into yachting, now?

I must be missing something in the news reports that the government has teamed up with the Royal Malta Yacht Club (in exactly the same way that it has done with the Malta Chamber of Commerce) and has set up a company in which the government has the controlling interest while the Royal Malta Yacht Club has 49%.

Konrad Mizzi, the health and energy minister, is in the photographs, standing there prominently clapping away in their famous manner of his while the participants shake hands on the deal.

Yachting is not in the health and energy portfolio. The other ministers I spot are Joe Mizzi (transport) and Edward Zammit Lewis (tourism), and the prime minister who is there for image- and relationship-building purposes as he was at the Chamber of Commerce.

Meanwhile, it’s pretty easy to see why this sort of thing is being done. The Labour Party is covering all bases, and it’s not for benefit to the country or the economy.

The Royal Malta Yacht Club teams up with the government to make Malta a yachting destination? You’d think that Malta has had no yachting industry for the last 20-odd years, no services and no marinas. Meanwhile, the Labour Party in Opposition amused itself by opposing any plans for any yacht marina anywhere.

As for this destination business – government after government misses the essential truth that destinations are not made by governments. The government can only provide the infrastructure. But it’s not going to make the place glamorous, fashionable, beautiful or chic.