Nationalist Party deputy leadership contender compares politics to a football match

Yesterday in the car I was listening to the lunchtime talk-show on the Nationalist Party’s radio station, hosted by Evelyn Vella Brincat, whose brother is the failed party leadership contender Frank Portelli. It was unbearable, but I felt I needed to suffer through it in the interest of journalism. David Agius, the party whip and contender for the post of deputy leader, was on with her.

I finally switched off when Mrs Vella Brincat announced that it was David Agius’s birthday – how old is he, 10? – that those listening to the show should give him “the best birthday present ever by becoming members of the Nationalist Party, because I have known David for a long time and he has always been a party boy so he will want that more than anything” (translated from the Maltese).

Then the intellectually challenged and free-loading Mr Agius, who should have been at his state-paid job at the Freeport at that time of day, interjected and said that what he wants more than anything is: “Li nara l-Partit Nazzjonalista jinżel fil-grawnd, jilgħab il-logħba mal-Partit Laburista u jirbaħ.” (“To see the Nationalist Party walk onto the football pitch, play a game against the Labour Party, and win.”)

This is what it has come to: the triumph of evil and idiocy, a kakocracy on one side of the House and an idiocracy on the other.

Nationalist Party deputy leadership contender David Agius (left) with party leader Adrian Delia: the serious business of the running of the country treated like a game of football in which the sole aim is for the Nationalist Party to ‘win the game’ against Labour.