In 2013, after more than a quarter of a century in politics and the media, you abruptly withdrew from both. What happened?

After Bondiplus was dropped from TVM’ schedule, I invited Simon Busuttil to dinner at our house to see whether I could shift my programme to NET. I made the offer at the party’s lowest political ebb in its history, right after it was crushed with a 36,000 vote deficit. Knowing that the party was effectively bankrupt, I also offered to take the risk of funding the programme entirely from sponsorships and advertising so it wouldn’t cost the party a cent.

I offered to take this risk when my partner Rachel and I were without a source of income, with a child on the way and when I was about to put another daughter through university in London. And those who think that I had made enough money during my years on TV don’t know what they’re talking about. 

Simon Busuttil’s immediate response to my offer was that since I was somehow associated with the defeated PN and its past I had become, and I quote, “a liability” to the party.

 

So you turned to Joseph Muscat who was only too happy to buy your silence?

Not quite. My political soul was moulded in the Eddie Fenech Adami era. It was a time when the buck always stopped at the party leader’s desk. If Simon Busuttil believed that I had become a liability to the new PN he wanted to create, the only gentlemanly response was to respect the decision with magnanimity and a dignified silence.

In other words, it was not Joseph Muscat who bought my silence, but Simon Busuttil who banished me to it.

 

Are you telling me that you took it all in your stride?

Bitterness and a sense of entitlement are not part of my constitution. So I took the only honourable route, and one which left no room for equivocation. I quietly and completely exited journalism and politics, left Where’s Everybody, the media house I co-founder with Peppi Azzopardi and PJ Vassallo, and started a new chapter in my life. And I kept my word. Despite what happened, since 2013, I have not written or publicly uttered a single word against the PN or Simon Busuttil.

But I have to admit that this twist of fate did take its toll on me. The Nationalist Party was part of my very identity and having its leader eject me put that identity into question. It was like being thrown out of the home I was born in, and for doing nothing worse than fiercely defending it till the end. With that one word from Simon Busuttil I instantly felt detached, disengaged from what was going on around me in politics and the media.

 

You have kept this truth to yourself for over four years with the result that a lot of people who didn’t know concluded that you sold your political soul to Labour. Why didn’t you speak up earlier?

With the electoral meltdown of 2013 - and despite what the ex-party leader did to me – I refused to add to the party’s problems by making his decision public. I preferred to keep my silence and bear the tsunami of nastiness hurled in my direction from people who just didn’t know the truth.

It was not an easy road to take. Had I cared only about myself and my interests and gone public about what Simon Busuttil said to me in 2013, my name would not have been so unjustly smeared. But the Nationalist Party has always been the party of gentlemen, and with all my faults, that’s what I struggled to be, whatever the personal cost.

On the bright side, the ordeal did serve a good purpose - it separated my real friends from the fake ones.

Why are you revealing it now?

I never wanted this matter to be instrumentalised for political reasons, by either side of the spectrum. So I waited for the right moment. Now that the election is over and Simon Busuttil has resigned it is time to set the record straight and clear my name once and for all.

So what happened after you decided to call it quits?

I immediately set up a consultancy in strategic communications, PR and marketing and I must say that demand from the private sector was extraordinary from day one.  Sometime later, an opportunity to add to the portfolio came up – a technical, not political, role in the Fondazzjonijiet Celebrazzjonijiet Nazzjonali (FCN). It entailed the steering of the national celebrations marking the four key anniversaries which fell in 2014. They included, the 50^th anniversary of Independence and the 10^th of Malta’s EU accession. I took up the opportunity with relish but not before making one final gesture in the PN’s direction.

When prime minister Joseph Muscat discussed this technical role in FCN with me, I got in touch with four men, Lawrence Gonzi, Simon Busuttil, Mario de Marco and Francis Zammit Dimech. I informed - not, I repeat, not consulted - them about it and to their credit none found an objection. I had absolutely no obligation to speak to them. After all, I had stopped working for the party in 1997. But a sense of duty dictated otherwise. In addition, the fact that these were going to be national celebrations, it was basic good form to speak to the party in opposition. Remember, I did all this after Simon Busuttil branded me as a liability to the PN.

In 2015, my consultancy was transferred to Arts Council Malta where the remit has been quite wide. Amongst other things, I give regular advice to the Festivals Director, I formed part of the organising committee commemorating the 450^th anniversary of the Great Siege, I am now the artistic director of a new yearly rock festival and I am also helping out with the Commonwealth conference on local councils coming up this November.

 

Allow me to go back to an earlier point. You must be aware that many people branded you as a political turncoat, an opportunist. Do you blame them?

Predictably, a lot of nastiness, lies and drivel were shovelled over me in the media and social media since I took up this consultancy work. And I’m enough of a Gozitan to instinctively pick up why I was being singled out while others, who started working with this government in other roles, were being left alone. Yet I ignored it all with a chuckle as I held the truth close to my chest.

Let me just give a few examples of the double standards and hypocrisy in my regard. Did Vanni Bonello - who in the 1980s was the highest-soaring legal eagle hovering over Labour’s rights abuses and whose father designed the PN emblem - do anything wrong by lending his expertise to two projects piloted by a Labour government a couple of years ago? By being a consultant to the Malta Gaming Authority, did Michael Frendo, a former PN minister, become a turncoat? Was Helen D’Amato, a former PN parliamentary secretary, in the wrong when she stayed on as Commissioner for Children under Labour? Was Eddie Fenech Adami wrong when he advised Marin Hili to stay on as Freeport chairman when Labour was elected in 1996? Did Eddie Fenech Adami commit an error of judgement when he retained Louis Grech at the helm of Air Malta throughout the 1990s? Did the thousands of Nationalist businessmen, politicians, lawyers and service providers who participated in bids for government contracts in the last four years betray their party? Will they stop tendering now that Labour has been re-elected? I could go on. Obviously, the only sane, European and Fenech Adami answer to all these questions is a categorical ‘no’.

Beyond this, however, there is an issue of principle at play here. What are these ‘Nationalists’ saying? That because there is a change in government, Malta’s already limited human resources should be limited further? If so, these ‘Nationalists’ are striking a mortal blow to this country’s heart, the very heart that Eddie Fenech Adami brought vibrantly back to life after 1987 when he passionately set off to persuade the country that the only way forward was national reconciliation.

Now let’s turn the tables, shall we? Most eligible professional services firms have been selling Maltese passports (IIP) to wealthy foreigners. Amongst the sellers, or associated with them, you’ll find Nationalist MPs, former ministers, candidates, high party officials and prominent activists, all known to me. The real issue here is one of political integrity. It has to do with what these Nationalists are saying in order to make a sale.

Here is what’s been happening on a daily basis. First, these ‘Nationalist’ professionals proceed to smooch their prospective passport clients in their boardroom. To make the sale they sing the praises of Malta’s political stability, economic buoyancy, impeccable democratic credentials, booming financial sector and rising foreign investment. The hypocritical apex is reached when they downplay any national reputational damage caused by the Panama Papers and their aftermath. Joseph Muscat rules ok, they sing from the boardroom hymn book.

Having sold the passport and pocketed the €70,000 commission, these ‘Nationalist’ lawyers and accountants would then breezily saunter over to one of Valletta’s drinking holes to deliver their routine diatribe against Joseph Muscat and how he has unravelled a quarter of a century of PN accomplishments.

Now that is what selling one’s political soul looks like to a Gozitan like me.

 

Any regrets about the career in journalism you left behind?

I was always a believer in activist journalism and was willing to pay the price for it. While I tried to be impeccably fair with everyone, journalism can never be neutral. It is inextricably tied to where the journalist stands on the big issues. I am proud that for almost three decades I did my tiny, miniscule part to turn this country into what it is today – a free and proud European democracy with a thriving economy, bursting with educational and employment opportunities and in which the vast majority enjoys a good standard of living. And I want this country to continue to reach higher heights, whoever is in government.

I do have one regret. I should have left the media when Malta joined the EU and Eddie Fenech Adami stepped down from the premiership. At that moment, all the big issues had been settled, my mission was accomplished and the country had completed the long journey from tal-Barrani to Brussels (a phrase I invented).

 

Looking at what happened in the past ten years - from the oil kickbacks scandal to the Panama Papers - are you still of the opinion that ‘all the big issues had been settled’? Are journalists today wasting their time?

It is precisely because the big issues have been settled that the ones you mention capture the headlines. Can you imagine the oil kickbacks scandal and the Panama Papers taking over the national agenda had Malta been without a free press, outside of the EU, without democracy, its institutions and the rule of law? Of course not.

Now can such historic achievements ever be undone? Yes they can, and in our case, with their roots being so short, with tribal politics alive and kicking, and with a collective consciousness which fails to appreciate the absolute indispensability of democratic institutions to everyday life, the danger is always clear and present.

Let me turn to the second part of your question: following this election, are journalists wasting their time? I guess the painful truth you’re hinting at is that although practically the entire independent media spectrum was militantly against Joseph Muscat, the people voted him back in with the same vengeance as four years ago, when most of them were much friendlier to him. My view is that in the absence of a deeper analysis of electoral results, an answer would be premature.

Now what’s next for Lou Bondi’?

Today I just wanted to reveal the truth in black and white, with names, facts and dates. As always, the truth matters only to those who wish to hear it. But quite frankly, I couldn’t care less about the rest. These four years have been a crash course in what is important in life – family, real friends, the country I passionately love and Rock & Roll.

For now, I am now perfectly happy to go back to the shadowed silence where the PN’s political liabilities live. Let the limelight shine brightly on the luminaries who are not.