Our previous Prime Minister famously declared that we would be tops in everything. He’s gone now but Joseph Muscat sure started something we never thought possible: Malta is the talk of the world. Even the most obscure village has heard of our exploits and we will soon head all the tables of achievement.

Way to go Joe, way to go.

Here are 10 things in which we have performed spectacularly over these last few years:

1.     Corruption. Few countries can say they had a Prime Minister who won the accolade of most corrupt person in the world. Corruption has become endemic. As an old friend told me, we always believed politicians were crooked but the present lot have invented a new level of crookedness unheard of in our life.

2.     Justice. Sane men and women always tried avoiding going to court to avoid unnecessary expense, public exposure and hassle. But until a short while ago, when heinous crimes and obvious wrongs were committed, no help from high levels could get you scot-free or keep you from being dragged to the courts. Today, even murderers, accomplices to murder, subverters of justice and abetters of crime in high office remain free. The science of impunity has been taken to a higher level in Malta.

3.     Congestion. Malta has turned itself into a traffic jam, with total mayhem on the roads. The rage that roads cause us will soon make us all unhinged. Our air quality is also one of the worst in Europe. Who cares if this is causing us terrible harm and that only a godly intervention can save us?

4.     Environment. Instead of looking after our small unbuilt space, we have made it a point to build everywhere and are now planning more construction by reclaiming land from our seas. The few trees we had keep getting chopped up and more arable land is being sacrificed for monstrous tarmac and traffic. We are definitely doing our utmost to turn our land into the least welcoming, crowded and polluted country. But as long as we build horrors everywhere and sell them as amazing pieces of real estate, who’s complaining?

5.     Propaganda. We might not be the worst for state garbage jamming our airwaves and in print. Places such as China, Russia, North Korea and Azerbaijan are worse than us. But we can give the rest of the world lessons in how to turn their citizens into abject nincompoops bleating out inanities.

6.     Planning. This must be one of the things we are best at: best at planning nothing, leaving everything to chance and letting everything we do turn into a mess. Traffic is a mess but it’s made messier by total incompetence in granting permits, letting contractors do everything they want and never enforcing anything. Valletta was being revived after being regaled with a beautiful entrance and parliament, then we ruined it all by turning the capital city into a food court with shabbiness all over. Tourism is booming but we seem intent on ruining everything we have. The plan seems to be that, once we have the numbers, we can always add more numbers even if the quality goes down. Who cares if there is no planning to make sure our infrastructure can take the added numbers?

7.     Heritage. One of the new Culture Minister’s first utterances was that XFactor was here to stay. With ministers like this, who needs barbarians?  Valletta – and most other cities and towns – are a sad vision of dirt, żdingar (total abandon), tents, never-ending outside seating and noise. If the inner core of our living space is not preserved, the rest will fall into disrepair immediately. Beautiful buildings are either dilapidated, pulled down, or have unsightly annexes added to them. The buildings being erected to fill empty spaces are soulless insults to our heritage.

8.     Finance. The economy is still ticking over but, with all our institutions in a precarious state, it is becoming more of a concern in the long-term. Companies want to feel secure if they are here or thinking of investing. The Finance Minister himself is under investigation but everything can be put right by giving away €35 for bread, milk and circuses. Everyone loves getting a few extra euros but the money could have been better spent – if it had been kept by the authorities – on health-screening or research or anything to improve our quality of life.

9.     Education. We can’t be too bright if we will still vote – according to surveys – for the party which gave us the most corrupt government in our history. We hit the lowest rungs when we claimed that fighting corruption was nothing but wanting to topple government. The people – apart from a few thousand – seemed to be in total awe of wrongdoing and accepted it as the best way forward. But then who can dispute the worst level of education when the man heading our education portfolio is Owen Bonnici? Given all sorts of accolades – shameful ones – by the highest court of the land, this lawyer has no shame and now accepts to remain Minister.

10.                         Reputation. We lost this a long time ago. But now it is descending even deeper in filth and slime. Some local organisations – bless them! – are now waking up and calling on the government to save the day. Unless – and until – our institutions are fixed, our reputation will remain tarnished.  Even then, it will be a long time before people abroad stop considering Malta to be a land of crooks led by crooks and friends of crooks – where corruption is rife and journalists are assassinated; where police commissioners are inept and police corruptible. The idea of Malta as a mafia state will long linger, especially if Robert Abela keeps saying we are back to normal already.

We are slowly but surely winning full marks in all things bad. Fittingly we are in the year 2020 so even the numerals give us full points: 20/20.