There he goes, still hawking passports by the yard

The lawyers, accountants, financial intermediaries and real-estate agents are thrilled to bits, but they can’t see beyond the jangling bags of money.

The reality is, when your government has been reduced to selling passports, it looks pathetic and desperate…and shady.

And that has consequences.

The sad thing is that the Labour trolls on the internet comments-boards are still talking about “attracting talent”. They haven’t twigged yet that even their Labour heroes have moved on from that and are now saying that you can’t expect the sort of people who are buying Maltese passports to spend any time in Malta at all.

They’re right about that. The only reason those people are buying Schengen Area EU passports from Muscat’s market stall is to move on to somewhere far more glamorous and interesting.

And that makes the transaction tackier still.