More Beijing-style autocracy: Malta no longer part of Schengen for this month

Bring out your passports and get ready to queue at airports if you’re travelling anywhere within the Schengen zone this month, because Malta has temporarily pulled out.

The reason? Security surrounding the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting – because you know how it is, every time a European Union member state plays host to a large international meeting – take Belgium, for instance – its government pulls it out of the Schengen zone instead of upping security and intelligence.

So to play host – pointlessly – to this meeting, the entire country is going to be inconvenienced by closure of the university, all schools (meaning that thousands of parents are going to have to take a day off work or fix babysitting), and the introduction of immigration controls for all airport arrivals and departures.

It’s just unbelievable, isn’t it. Next thing you know, they’re going to confine us to barracks so that we don’t clutter up the streets and they can decorate them with Super One chicks in a tonne of make-up and stacked heels, and fey gay men in their late teens, with Vaselined eyebrows, instead.