British government’s 1964 Independence gift to Malta is on Muscat’s office mantelpiece

The British government’s gift to Malta on independence in 1964 was a silver centrepiece in the form of an eight-pointed cross superimposed on the George Cross.

This centrepiece, as the name implies, is meant to be laid flat at the centre of a table-setting.

It was also a gift to the new state, and not to the government or to any prime minister, so it more properly belongs on public view in the presidential palace in Valletta.

Yet if my eyes do not deceive me, there it is, propped up on Joseph Muscat’s office mantelpiece among his family photographs in their silver frames.

It doesn’t take much to work out what happened here: his wife popped in from her office elsewhere in the building and arranged the décor, matching that interesting silver ornament to the silver photograph frames.