By now we are well aware of the almost contempt with which the people of Malta and Gozo are held in this country.   Whether it is being kept awake through night and day with excavation works going on right under our windows and balconies, cranes blocking our streets everywhere we turn, trucks lumbering through the roads carrying their payload of stone and debris and the ample traffic fumes penetrating every crevice or when our calls for justice are dismissed as the cries of a peddler on the street.

Everywhere you turn, every time you raise your gaze or open a newspaper there is another insult, another disrespect and the continuous drilling of labour propaganda towards the Nationalists and anyone who is not Labour is labelled, by default, as a Nationalist and put into the same pen.

It is assumed that anyone who is Labour is not going to protest a thing.  They are the indentured labourers.  Anyone else who dares to hold a different opinion and stand behind their principles is considered subversive and an enemy of the state. 

It makes you wonder, what little confidence and pride the Government ministers, the Prime Minister and his closest aides, have in being elected to power.  We see in their attitude as if their job were a theatre that must be managed and controlled. 

We read about cases of suspected crime which have been reported to the Police, that they have known about for years, and for which nothing has been done, no-one brought to justice and the Minister is quite content to say that if anything comes to his attention, he passes it on to the Police. 

Is it possible that Ministers allow the Police to simply ignore him or her?  Are they satisfied that matters that fall under their Ministerial responsibilities are not given the proper investigation they are due and to have them report back on developments?   To say that they cannot interfere in investigations is just a convenient excuse.  It is the duty and responsibility of the Minister to see that serious investigation is being carried out and suspicion removed.

We can look back on the Libyan medical visa scandal, on the supposed audits of the off-shore accounts and trusts of Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri, on the oil scandal, on murders committed, on bombs that maimed and killed, on alleged fraud and graft, on the many reports of the FIAU, on taxes evaded and the bad conduct of official persons taking part in commercial and compromising associations, on unfair transfers of people on their job, on the claims of people who are in dire straits, on those who still endure the effect of the rent control on their property from the Mintoff era or the National bank saga, of the price of petrol we pay when the real cost of fuel had dropped to a fraction of what it was, of patients lying on stretchers in corridors or crammed into make-do wards without proper comfort and facilities.  About those who should be charged against the law of discrimination and defamatory statements.

Ministers are told too about the problems facing families and working people who need to rent accommodation and the unaffordable prices they are being asked to pay. 

They know too, how teachers are struggling and that the future of receiving a good education is at risk. 

The same way, they have heard about what the traffic congestion is costing our country and how the situation is becoming worse instead of better as residents’ complaints fall on deaf ears.

Above all, they are aware of the manipulation of our institutions and how disgraced our name has become all over the free world.

It is members of a cult who behave like only the word and order of the teacher counts.  They are not free to think for themselves, only to obey and to exclude anyone who does not agree with their cult. 

Such cults are not used to a society which has a voice.  They are uncomfortable with a plurality and will do anything to protect their group. 

The uncomfortable truth is that Malta is not the hegemony that labour thinks it is.  For this reason, we keep hearing calls for unity and any protest is considered treason.  Those who live in a cult do not know freedom and how it works. 

It is time to return to real politics, to institutions that are led by competent and worthy persons who have the interest of the people in mind and not who simply belong to the cult. 

Who will stand apart and have the pride to own their job?   Or do they have to wait for permission to hand in their composition on “What I did this Summer”?

In the meantime, reports and investigations languish in piles on the Commissioner’s floor, covered with coffee-mug stains, whilst over at the Ministry for Home Affairs and National Security they play roulette with life and death.  And the office of the Attorney General fades to black.

I would have no shame in coming out on Strait Street, wearing whatever it is that the women of the street wear, if my call is one to seek justice and to serve my neighbour.  Better than the pimp who lurks in the street corners and collects money for work he did not do.

All the innuendos, all the comments and accusations being made against honest people are nothing more than an insecurity arising from guilt and their own shame.  They carry it with them and try to offload onto someone else but they are beginning to see that it is returned unopened. 

Cries of surplus?  We are not interested.  Claims of new businesses coming to Malta?  No thank you if they come from the usual suspect sources.  The fact is that this Labour outfit have now lost all credibility amongst the middle class and business organisations and play only to the cult members. 

There is little respect for women, no respect for freedom of speech or for how the rule of law works.  As a country, we were freer and more respected under a foreign rule than we are now, under the control of organised crime and money-laundering, with a cult regime led by an invisible hand. 

We have lost all peace of mind and our Maltese identity.  Being Maltese has become a dirty word. Those who try to salvage some honour are called traitors and prostitutes.

Honestly, is it possible that we have no more pride left in us?