Magistrate Consuelo Herrera has exonerated the President of Malta from any responsibility for the disaster that was her show-off-cars fundraiser, in which 28 people who were not protected by safety barriers were badly injured by a flying Porsche containing a vulgar British new-money millionaire. I cannot help but wonder whether the President of Malta, in her capacity as chair of the Commission for the Administration of Justice, has exonerated Magistrate Consuelo Herrera in the cases before the Commission which involve her. The magistrate had a massive conflict of interest in that inquiry and should never have been appointed to lead it. It was maybe too much to expect somebody with her values, and who shares a home with Mr It’s Not Illegal Therefore It’s Acceptable, to excuse herself voluntarily.

The Emperor Caligula has appointed his horse Incitatus to the Roman Senate. That’s the first thing that came to my mind when I read that the Prime Minister has nominated his party deputy leader, the excitable and spluttering Toni Abela, as Malta’s member of the European Court of Auditors. The (true) story of Caligula and his horse has gone down in popular lore as evidence of the emperor’s insanity. But the reality is that Caligula did not appoint his horse to the Senate because he was mad, but to mock and denigrate the Senate, to insult it and to cause it offence.

The Law Commissioner – or is it President of the Law Commission? – is at war with the Justice Minister who appointed him, and doesn’t care who knows about it. He actually wants us all to know about it, and that’s why he’s waging his war publicly on, of all things, Facebook and the internet comments-boards. Instead of presenting his objections to the Justice Minister in writing, or face to face, and then resigning, he continues to take his salary and his car allowances and call himself the Law Commissioner (or is it President of the Law Commission), while doing no discernible work for the government because he’s always strutting up and down the streets of Valletta and around the halls and corridors of the Courts of Justice, on behalf of his own private clients.

The Justice Minister, meanwhile, busies himself with a cameo role on the Victorian baiting-circus that is Xarabank, but instead of concentrating on his arguments, he focuses his full attention on smiling like an imbecile when the camera focuses on him. Because of this, he comes across to the audience – the more sentient part, sitting at home – as a misshapen and aged Miss Universe of dwarf-like proportions who wants to save the world and work with children while showing us her dental-work.

The former Parliamentary Secretary for Lands, whose brief tenure in the cabinet has ended in disgrace, appeared on the aforementioned Xarabank to compare himself to Jesus Christ nailed to the cross. His interviewer lets this go past because he is more concerned with the appearance of his very dated shoulder-length curls. Michael Falzon takes advantage of the interviewer’s preoccupation with his self-image, and his blank face, to present himself as a martyred innocent. The interviewer says “Tajjeb. Issa immorru ghal…”

Information emerges that the Spouse of the Prime Minister is burning up hundreds of euros in public money every month on diesel for her Chevrolet, which is also financed by public money, and that she is covering around 660 kilometres every week. There is a bit of brouhaha – not much, but in Third World Malta you’ve got to be grateful for any fluttering sign of democratic spirit – and the Prime Minister responds: “My second car is being used in exactly the same way as my predecessor’s.” People who hear that struggle to conjure up a picture of Mrs Gonzi burning up a salary’s worth of diesel as she joyrides over 2,500 kilometres a month on an island small enough to fit on a postcard, and fail.

In 11 months’ time, Malta will begin its six-month presidency of the European Council, and six months after that ends, it begins its stint as European Capital of Culture (the whole island is meant to be involved, and not just Valletta). Yet preparations are up in the air and nobody seems to know what is happening with either. When the day arrives, the government could usefully commission its favourite lighting company to jazz up the façade of the Prime Minister’s Office with a flashing (and flashy) installation featuring the legend U EJJA, MHUX XORTA.

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