Look at this graph: unlike Muscat and his trolls, it doesn’t lie

The attached chart is for Government Effectiveness Rank selected for UK, USA, Sweden and Malta. You can find out more here.

As the UK prepares to pull out of the European Union, there are going to be legions of financial companies looking for a European Union base, and they use sites like this as a basis for their decision. They will be looking for a continuing upward trend, which is not the case with Malta – and it’s only going to get worse.

When you assess the government’s boastful talk about the economy, you have to go to other sources that have no interest in telling you anything other than the bald, brutal facts – sources on which investment decisions are made.

The craziest argument in this electoral campaign is that construction is the motor of the economy. It most definitely is not. Construction is a secondary supply industry that services the real motors of the economy: financial services, remote gaming and related fields.

The reason there is so much demand for flats is because people are coming in to Malta to work in those fields and need to rent them. Without financial services, without remote gaming, without those related fields, the construction industry will be like Ireland’s after the crash: a total collapse, with abandoned, half-finished buildings.

Look at this graph, and look at it well – especially if you are in construction.

The green line is Malta: look what happens after 2013.