It’s kids’ play, really. Think of dot-to-dot pages for kids. You join the dots and – hey presto! – you get the full picture. Even dimwits can do it. You don’t need a PhD or to be a top Harvard graduate. You join the dots and your conclusion is easily reached: they are as guilty as hell.

Unlike kids, politicians – especially today’s – can’t see straight when straight leads them to losing power – or straight to a courtroom and jail.

The dots are there – actually they have been there for a very long time now – for all to see. But in the land where we try hard to look the other way when nefarious things happen before our eyes, we all lack the most basic of faculties: like seeing and reasoning.

The dots have been more pronounced these last few days. Keith Schembri, Chief of Staff at Castille, has planned and masterminded the total overhaul of Malta Inc., with Joseph Muscat as CEO and with no one to answer to except a few cronies and rubber-stampers.

This same Keith Schembri has now withdrawn the libel case he himself instituted against Simon Busuttil when the latter called Schembri corrupt. Instead of clearing his name once and for all, he withdrew the charges, claiming that by answering questions he could incriminate himself.

Now, in a court of law where there are dubious characters either with a criminal record or who are closely involved with criminals, such a plea does sometimes make sense. But when it comes from the man who is expected to be above all suspicion of wrongdoing as he is the main bridge between the Prime Minister and the rest of the world, that plea is despicable: truly admitting that not all is good, rosy and clean-smelling up in Castille.

Keith Schembri has the constant ears and eyes and all things effective and important of the man who wields most power in Malta. By extension, the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff is nearly all-powerful. Schembri is the eminence grise, the power behind the throne, the man needed to reach the pinnacle of the reins of power.

The dots are hardly new. The conclusion is not a particularly new one. The men closest to Joseph Muscat are obviously as guilty as hell and by defending them and keeping them in their positions, either Muscat thinks we are all blind or he is totally embroiled with them.

The remedial action should be obvious: stop playing up, plead guilty and run as fast as your feet can carry you: to your own choice of paradise in exile. Either that or seek a proper investigation. Do not set up smokescreens and layers of obfuscation, do not remain the one who calls the shots: move over and let someone else take over.

Until that happens, why should we believe that anything is being properly investigated? We have a Police Commissioner who has now definitely set a record since the Labour Party – or rather the Joseph Muscat Party – swept to power.

In the first years in power, from 2013 to 2016, Malta witnessed the appointment of no fewer than three Police Commissioners. The last and most incompetent, Lawrence Cutajar, has lasted – to date – a full three uninterrupted years. His main credentials are calling Joseph Muscat a man with balls of steel and his notorious night out eating rabbit.

So let’s be totally childish and join the bloody dots. Because he is such a dolt and he fits the cap of Labour Party lackey so well, Lawrence Cutajar has lasted this amazing length of time.

Just as a historical fact, under the PN from 1987 to 2013, there were merely five Police Commissioners.

Maths and history aside, this country is at crisis point. The sad thing is that we have a Leader of the Opposition who cannot take the moral high ground without being grounded in his own quagmire of filth and terrible old baggage. Instead of finding Adrian Delia as a shield and a rallying point, we have him basically playing a cameo part, hardly saying or doing much. Just when this country needs him, he is playing the role of the invisible man who sometimes whimpers.

We need to move away from waiting for judicial sentencing when it comes to politics. In a court of law, there are many instances when a man or woman is found innocent on a technical point or because the evidence needs too much corroborating.

In the field of politics we need to have clean – and seen to be clean beyond any doubt – men and women at the top.

If not, the men and women of Malta will all draw their own conclusions by joining the dots: once the top brass are seen to be corrupt and face no punishment or retribution, then everything is permissible in this blessed land of ours.