I felt greatly honoured the night before last to be named one of Politico's 28 individuals who are "shaping, shaking and stirring Europe". I had thought that the "28" was a reference to the member states, and that one person would be picked from each.

But it turns out that the number, though significant in relation to Europe and NATO, is not there for that purpose.

The 28 people who have been selected by Politico are not all from EU member states, which means that some EU member states are not represented at all on the list. And that means it is a greater honour still because I am not the ‘token Maltese’.

I say this because a lot of people commenting online seem to have failed to understand what it all means.

Some think it is a journalism award (it most certainly is not; there are politicians, business operators and others included).

Others think it is some kind of prize (it isn’t). And others don’t even know what Politico is (they should use Google a little more).

Of course, many of those commenting negatively are not ignorant of the significance, but are merely outraged.

For years, they have listened to constant diatribes of poisonous insults hurled my way by the Labour Party via its media, its politicians, its large army of internet elves, and its fellow-travellers who work for and own other newspapers.

This brainwashing has been so powerfully effective that people who don’t know me from Adam and who never read what I write – largely because they are disengaged from current affairs and even because they simply can’t understand anything but the most basic English or any English at all – feel qualified to have an opinion about me.

And yes, it is an opinion about me and not an opinion about my work.

So it is important to have an outside ‘stamp of certification’, if you wish to see it that way, to remind those people, or tell them for the first time, that I actually do a job here, and elsewhere in the civilised, democratic world, it is considered a normal job.

Had I lived in Paris, or London, or Rome, or Berlin, I would have been just another journalist, columnist, blogger, whatever – but because what I do is considered by Maltese people in Malta to be so weird and abnormal, I stand out.

Nobody else wants to do the same thing, because they see what I have to go through and they don’t want to have to deal with the same fall-out.

The extraordinary truth is that it is my enemies to whom I owe this honour.

In their constant expressions of hatred towards me, that strike people beyond these narrow shores as completely discordant and strange, they have made me a focal point and brought me to the notice of others elsewhere. So for that, I must thank them.

At Politico’s dinner for 200, that night, I was seated directly opposite Nigel Farage.

When I saw his name on the place-card, I thought, “This must be a joke”, but it wasn’t. I had written about him just that day, about how he had been dressed as Lord Nelson, a hero he couldn’t hope to emulate in courage in the face of great physical danger, at a costume ball hosted by a billionaire Trump donor in honour of billionaire Trump – and how ridiculous it all was that ‘the people’ had shown their anger at ‘the elite’ and ‘the Establishment’ by reinstating the excesses of Versailles.

Farage looked visibly impatient, annoyed and irritable, barely bothering to make conversation – his press officer, seated next to me, talked far more than he did.

And then as the evening progressed one reason for his annoyance became clear. Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, was No. 1 on Politico’s list (I came in at a relatively poor 26), and a great deal of fuss was made at the announcement, with the evening’s only applause.

There was also a video message from Khan, who said emphatically that he would do everything in his power to make sure that London remains Europe’s “most European” city and that all non-British people who live and work there will be made to feel that they still belong.

And Farage? When he was interviewed for a few minutes on stage at the party, and asked about his plans, he said that he would be staying on in the European Parliament.

There was some heckling from the floor. He really is a shallow man, terribly impressed by the Trumps.