Muscat pushes the notion that he only travelled to New York to drum up investment

He thinks his entire audience – and you’ll have to forgive him for that – is made up of people who didn’t notice that his companions on the trip were not the chief of Malta Enterprise, representatives of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Economy Minister.

They were the Finance Minister, the Malta Financial Services Authority chief and – what excuse does the Prime Minister have for this one? – the deputy governor of the Central Bank of Malta. The professional deputy governor, Sandro Demarco, that is, and not the political appointee Alfred Mifsud, or the other political appointee to the top job at the Central Bank, Mario Vella.

Central bank chiefs do not travel with prime ministers to drum up investment. Their job is to deal with structural and situational problems in banking.