One of the more unfortunate aspects of being part of a small and unusual population is that every one of us is seen as a sort of unofficial ambassador or representative of the country.

Everyone remembers the Hawaiian they met 10 years ago, or the man from Madeira they sat next to on a plane. Everyone registers meeting a Maltese, and will then tell the next Maltese they meet all about it. “Oh I know somebody Maltese! I met him at a party last week. His name is X. Do you know him?” And invariably, you do know him.

If the only four Maltese people a non-Maltese has ever met are short, fat, loud, ugly and vulgar, he’s going to think that all Maltese are that way (close, but still, not true). When he meets his fifth Maltese and it’s somebody fairly sophisticated, well dressed and a good conversationalist with perfect manners, the reaction will be “You don’t seem very Maltese.”

If this applies to us ordinary folk as we go about our business, then how much truer is it of those who become figureheads for Malta by representing the country at an official level, beyond its shores, where meeting a Maltese can be like meeting somebody from the Puffin Islands? People in that position have an even greater responsibility to behave properly at all times, to be civilised and admirable representatives for the Maltese in general. Probably most Maltese are like John Dalli, which is why so many have been unable to see what’s wrong with his behaviour, but that’s not the standard we should keep or the standard we should show ourselves to have. It’s not good news for those who are not like John Dalli, and it’s certainly not good news for Malta, which must make headway in a very difficult world.

Sending John Dalli to the European Commission was a piece of very-high-risk strategy with a 99.9 per cent certainty of blowing up in Malta’s face. He should never have been dispatched to such an important post, and sending him to sit in the European Commission was an act of grave disrespect to that Commission and to the position itself. It wasn’t safe to expect him to rise to the occasion when, past the age of 60, the likelihood of a man changing his behaviour is negligible.

But what’s done is done. It is the consequences of that bad decision that we are all dealing with now. And I mean all, because Dalli did not disgrace himself only, or cause offence to the prime minister, or draw down opprobrium on the government. He has turned himself into a national embarrassment.

He has continued to compound his dishonour and to illustrate further just why he was unfit for office by turning himself into a circus act. At the time I am writing this (yesterday afternoon) he is in Brussels, staging a press conference to announce that he will sue the European Commission for “unfair dismissal”.

Unfair dismissal – a European Commissioner? Some now say that the man has completely lost it, but I won’t, because I never thought he had it. Of course, this behaviour will attract the admiration of the worst and most ignorant elements of our society, the very same who think that Jeffrey Pullicino and Franco Debono are towering examples of honourable manhood. And the tragedy is that, because individuals like these are not plagued by the self-doubt that is a hallmark of true intelligence, they will not be reined in, even if those close to them were inclined to try to save them from further disgracing themselves. The real reason, of course, is that if men like these ally themselves to anyone at all, it is to enablers, to those who encourage them in the path of self-delusion, sometimes because they are deluded themselves.

Is there nobody who can stop Dalli’s progress down the rabbit-hole? Clearly not. The most worrying aspect of this business is that he seems not concerned so much at the loss of his position, but at the loss of what that position meant to him in terms of opportunities. From cabinet minister to EU Commissioner, and now with no power at all, not even the power of being aligned to a political party, unless you count his current flirtations with Labour. He has been accustomed to working within the wheels of influence and perhaps even using that influence to his advantage, which is what this disastrous case is all about. What will he do now? I believe that to be his problem.