This is institutional engineering, if you like. The Maltese don’t mind because, although they claim to have fought heroically for independence, they don’t really give a shit about the republic. Let’s get independence, and to hell with how we’ll run ourselves once we do.

And this is the primary reason for removing Labour and returning the Nationalist Party to power. So we can stand up once again in public, in full view of the cameras and within earshot of several police officers, and say ‘fucking wanker’. Or block the traffic on Gerolamo Cassar Road with a sit-down protest. Or chant ‘assassin tal-Maltin’ on a megaphone, with a police officer standing not five feet away.

We can have a fantastically-performing GDP AND freedom. It’s not one or the other.

At the core of Joseph Muscat’s political programme is this choice he imposed since 2013: Accept the haxi in return for full employment.

Wow. And this is the man who claims to love his country?

Of course the Nationalists went along with it, at least until late last year. They’ve been drilled to the mantra of full employment as the highest and noblest national goal since about 2003. The chaos you’re seeing now within the Nationalist Party and among Malta’s so-called intellectual class and commentators is just that. They’re having to reconsider the mantra.