The president of the European Council is Donald Tusk. Malta holds the presidency of the Council of the EU, both of which are to be distinguished from the Council of Europe (who names these things anyway?). The Council and European Council are two separate and different institutions.

Joseph Muscat’s integrity? Is there even such a thing?

Blaming the Russians makes a change from blaming the Archbishop of Malta.

If he wanted the inquiry closed he would not have sent the magistrate on a wild goose chase. The magistrate has to investigate these claims.

One would be forgiven for thinking that this is taken from Joseph Muscat’s psychological profile. It is not. It is in fact taken from Dr. Langer’s work titled ”The Mind of Adolf Hitler”.

There is nothing original in what Muscat is doing but the lack of originality does not diminish the deception and manipulation.

No, you’re wrong: it’s the opposite of that. He’s panicking because the inquiry is ongoing and he’s heading into a general election with an open inquiry that he was stupid enough to call himself.

When he called that inquiry, it was the first sign to me that Muscat was cracking and had lost his sense of judgement. Not only did he throw his mates to the wolves – the inquiry would inevitably drag in the entire workings of Pilatus Bank and Nexia BT – but it would turn into a full-scale money-laundering inquiry because of the nature of the crimes involved.

And this time, the Police would not be able to cover up the magistrate’s report as they covered up the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit reports – precisely because of all the publicity generated by the Prime Minister himself.

Basically, he set up a bear-trap for others and walked into it himself.