Grazzi talli xebbahtni ma’ Salamun.

Storja antika u tal-biki li fi zmien dan il-gvern ta’ Muscat u Panamagate etc. jaghmuha tax-xadini li ma jaraw xejn hazin, ma jisimghu xejn hazin u ma jaghmlu xejn hlief jeqirdu l-provi ta’ rejati u jhallu lil min jeqred il-provi sfaccatament.

U meta jinqala xi whistle blower kuragguz u disgustat biex jghin, il-pulizija, jew xi awtorita’ ohra kompetenti, iduru ghalih u mhux jinvestigaw l-abbuz u jirringrazzjawh.

U fuq kollox, u wara kollox, ifegg xi Salamun jistaqsi “Fejn huma l-provi?”

Fil-fehma tieghi ma hemmx korruzzjoni akbar minn dik.

I think John Dalli did the wherewithal, spanning ten budgets. Comparisons are odious but he reminds of Nigel Lawson or Gordon Brown (pace your dissenting opinion). The latter had better be known in that capacity. Same with Dalli until he went to less pastures green.

I’m sorry, but the UK government cabinet is made up entirely of members of parliament. The reason they do not suck up has nothing to do with their being hired and fired at the whim of the prime minister, but with British social culture over centuries that despises any form of sucking up and kowtowing.

But that’s the thing – you cannot bang on normality. As you said the other day that truth may not always prevail when it is wanted most. The head of police is not answerable to Parliament but the attorney to government is.

But see what happened. So you have to provide checks and balances that really work. Look at what is happening in America because lawmakers there do not suck up to the president. His cabinet does and if you have followed the media. my dear (oops!) yesterday or the day before, they did just that in a cabinet meeting that CNN described as surreal.

But they are hired and fired by Trump. Lawmakers are not. The same could be said of MPs in the Commons. Tory Osborne has described Tory May as a dead woman walking. It’s because in America and by and large in the UK they do not have this kind of conflict of interest that our system that turns lawmakers into executives (a political hybrid if you like) breeds.

How would having the possibility of appointing outsiders to the cabinet change this? He would still appoint his MPs to keep them quiet. He doesn’t need to keep outsiders quiet.

Like so many others, you make the mistake of attributing normal governance objectives to Muscat, and have failed to understand that his real cabinet is composed of himself, Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi, with Louis Grech in on it but we’re not yet sure how.

Scicluna wasn’t just disagreeing with a conclusion of a report but creating doubt and implying that the entire FIAU is working against the Labour Party, the government, or against Malta, as Labour propaganda puts it.

Should he have asked those questions?