Then some people are surprised when somebody caught cheating at university level so many times goes on to take a state salary for a job he doesn’t do – a job he shouldn’t even have in the first place because he got it through political connections when the Nationalists were in government.

The Nationalist Party has spent the years since the high point of taking Malta into the European Union in 2004 weakening the links in its chain, so doggedly that you almost have to wonder whether it was deliberate.

One lies and the other cheats – what a dream team

When the Nationalist Party broke the news in a press release a few hours ago, this website rang Chris Said, who Adrian Delia, the party leader, had invited to stand for the post. Dr Said had agreed reluctantly, saying that he would do so only if he is the sole contender.

Dr Said confirmed to this website that on the basis of that agreement with the party leader, he will now not stand for election to the post. Mr Vassallo presented no such obstacle, because he has said already that if Dr Said comes forward, he will stand aside.

There are two ways of considering this situation. One is that after a weeks of intensive campaigning, David Agius is so determined to become deputy leader for parliamentary affairs that he has defied the party leader’s wish to pull Dr Said on board to make himself look better with disillusioned supporters who are leaving the party in droves. The other is that Mr Agius did not defy his party leader at all, but on the contrary has hatched a scheme with Dr Delia (he is one of his closest allies and collaborators) to keep out Dr Said, who they don’t actually want around, while at the same time making it look like Dr Delia tried to rope him in for ‘unity’.

Whichever it is, my considered view is that Dr Said was extremely relieved when Mr Agius, who is not known for his intelligence, threw his hat into the ring at the 11th hour. He would not have wanted to refuse Dr Delia’s invitation outright because it would have come across as querulous, but nor would he want to be embroiled in the evolving mess in the Nationalist Party at a formal hierarchical level.

Meanwhile, with just an hour to go until nominations close, Robert Arrigo remains the sole contender for the other deputy leadership role, that for party affairs. Clyde Puli today announced that he wouldn’t be standing for election to that role after all, saying more or less that he respects the party leader’s wish to have one deputy leader from his camp and another who had supported his electoral rivals.

When David Agius put himself forward formally for the one role, which meant Chris Said’s exclusion, it followed that the other role could not be taken up by Mr Puli, who is also a close collaborator of Dr Delia’s. It also assumes that Edwin Vassallo is also one of Dr Delia’s backers or that Mr Agius is bound to win against him. Robert Arrigo did not campaign for Dr Delia.

The election takes place on 18th November.

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.

Promoting the interview on her Facebook page, Miss Dimech refers to the Opposition leader’s wife as “my beautiful Nickie” and then as “oh, my beautiful doll”.

Because the Opposition leader has repeatedly posted enthusiastic comments beneath Rebecca Dimech’s provocative poses on Facebook, Mrs Delia was at pains to dismiss any suspicions people might have had about “infidelity” by telling her interviewer “we laughed our heads off”.

The widespread suspicions she needs to address about her and the Opposition leader’s relationship with Miss Dimech, though, have nothing to do with infidelity.

Miss Dimech, who works in make-up, is an amateur glamour model from the wrong side of the tracks, whose long-term boyfriend, Andre Falzon (known as Id-Diesel) is a convicted drug-dealer well known to the police. He was released from prison last June. She is also in her early 30s while Mrs Delia is a 45-year-old married housewife with five children, who trained as a lawyer and socialises with a very different set. The Opposition leader himself is at least 15 years older than Miss Dimech.

When women are best friends – however unlikely the scenario given that they have nothing in common and move in different worlds, but they say they are best friends – this means that their husbands or boyfriends are unavoidably in constant contact too. In this case, the husband is the leader of the Opposition and the boyfriend is a convicted, lifelong drug-dealer who was released from jail a few months ago.

This issue was not addressed in the interview.

Yesterday, LovinMalta published a piece about my discovery that Adrian Delia was at Massimo Dutti in Sliema shopping for an outfit when he was meant to be at his official swearing-in ceremony already. Beneath, Rebecca Dimech posted a series of angry and defensive comments which are reproduced in full below.

In one, she says, “Me and Dr Nickie” – Mrs Delia – “are close friends like sisters”. She also says that her motto is “sexy till I die”.

The comments, which were up until last night and seen by several people who took screen-shots, were deleted today.

Rebecca Dimech

Rebecca Dimech with her long-term boyfriend, convicted drug-dealer Andre ‘Id-Diesel’ Falzon, who was released from prison last June.

The Opposition leader with Rebecca Dimech (in red) and his wife (second from right)

Both were purchased from the Elisabetta Franchi shop in Sliema’s Bisazza Street, which is owned by the Dizz Group, where the photographs below were taken for this website.

The heavy wool dress, which incorporates a faux-fur stole, is part of the new cold-weather collection but Mrs Delia wore it on a day when the temperature reached 25C. She kept the outfit on for her appearance on the television show Xarabank later that evening, halving the ‘cost per wear’.

The total price of her outfit for that day is the equivalent of what married pensioners have to live on for 10 weeks. The price tag did not deter Dr and Mrs Delia, who have no money in the bank and who are living off credit cards and bank overdrafts, while they owe €1 million in personal and household debts and owe a further €7.3 million to HSBC Bank, jointly and severally with others (which means that the bank can foreclose on them alone) on a loan taken out 11 years ago for a failed building development venture in Mgarr, Gozo.

Dr Delia sought election by arguing that he does not live in an ivory tower but mixes with ordinary people and is one of them, and so will listen to the concerns and feel the pain of the man in the street.

The Elisabetta Franchi shop in Sliema’s Bisazza Street, where Mrs Delia bought her dress and shoes for more than a thousand euros.

The Great Democratic Uzbekistani Leader ranted on and the television interviewer nodded and smiled and asked convenient leading questions.

Or maybe it wasn’t so much an Uzbekistani performance as your standard encounter between two Maltese 50-year-olds: the man ranting on about himself, oblivious to the woman’s glazed-eye boredom because he is convinced of his own power to enthral, and the woman privately thinking what a t**ser he is, and how very unattractive Maltese men become beyond a certain fairly early age, but how she’d better be nice to him because of her husband and because men don’t like women who talk back, so she had better keep nodding and smiling and occasionally opening her eyes wide (which helps with the struggle to stay awake and alert, but which the man helpfully mistakes for fascination).

Some people seem thrilled because the new Nationalist Party leader said during his election campaign – but then he would, wouldn’t he – that he wants to “listen to people”. How I laughed. The thought of that man listening to anyone at all is hilarious. My life experience tells me that he’s one of those who talks at people, totally oblivious to whether they are interested and without the slightest interest in hearing what they might have to say when they can get a word in edgeways.

Smashing Uzbekistan set – all we need are some lurid fake flowers in a gold enamelled urn with plenty of curlicues and fluting.