They’ve scraped the barrel. But don’t just blame the politicians for this. Notice how people lap it up and enjoy it when it’s their party doing the mud-slinging and engaging in shifty behaviour. I was appalled by the partisan comments under the Harry Vassallo arrest warrant story on The Times on-line version. Thousands out there love being blinded by prejudice. It gives them comfort.

“Where are the women?”

Some women are arguing forcefully that a political leader needs a wife to be a serious candidate. Single men are weirdos in tolerant Smart Malta. The Coen brothers should shoot a sequel on the island called “No Country For Single Men.” Slit your wrists you weirdos. Get yerselves a wife, will ya not?

“What next?”

MLP gets in - Sant’s long and winding voyage to Castile is vindicated. If you slog it out long enough, it pays. The Marathon Man of European Opposition politics gets his gold medal after all. Reform in MLP put off for 10 even longer years. PN shrugs and puts blame squarely on a) inevitable desire for change ‘no-matter-what’ and b) traitors who abandoned their noble cause. No major shifts occur in PN apart from some ‘fresh faces’ taking their chance.

PN gets – A euphoric feeling that This is the Chosen Party leading God’s Chosen People into the Promised Land takes over. Sant bows out and goes on to write a long novel that chronicles the adventures of an absurd little country obsessed by politics. MLP top brass in a quandary: apparently we need a clean sweep but that means the end of our political career. Nini nini (snook).

AD? You mean that bunch of traitors, Savonarolas, tax evaders, ditherers, fence-sitting abortionist opportunists?

David Friggieri

J’accuse by Jacques René Zammit