What is astonishing about both Joseph Muscat’s government and Robert Abela’s, after him, is the way they are so comfortable lounging and lolling about in sleaze, filth, and a city and landscape that is destroyed beyond hope.

There was a time when Maltese pavements would be kept clean by the owner of the house that belonged to that space.  Going to Qormi, you would not believe the cleanliness of their front doors and windows.  They have a method of their own in how they polish those brass handles and glass.  Shiny as a diamond.

Parents, also would take pride in how they dressed their children, for school or for an occasion, even Sunday mass.  I still see that in Munxar church but amongst the older children and men, it is relaxing.

Civil Servants had a dress code.  Teachers too.  Smart was the operative word.  Not everyone observed it to same degree but the intention was there.

Maybe it was Dom Mintoff with his big leather belt and buckle the size of a dinner plate, looking as if he had left the stables and rode a horse to work, who first signaled that standards are for those who chose to follow them.  The rest can do as they please. 

The correlation of external image as a reflection of conduct and values got chucked out of the window along with any other British habits.  Even social life got axed when Mintoff prohibited civil servants from attending various dinners or receptions.  You would need to apply for approval before RSVP-ing. 

Indeed, the 1967 arrival and departure of Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip is now a rare picture, with Dr Borg Olivier, the Governor and the entourage, all dressed in tail coats as they greeted her arrival and waved their good-byes.

Besides the buckles and belts and open shirt, language, attitude and decency began the steady decline.  Society became divided.  Hate speech common.  Sliema suffered the brunt of it under the “Speak Maltese” brigade.  But it was not just the actual language, English or Maltese, that got the third degree.  It was the kind of talk that was used in Parliament and outside too. 

The atmosphere of bullying became quite normal.  Whilst Mintoff’s daughter was throwing excrement in Westminster, here the Labour party began their slide into the muck.  Lorry Sant and his henchmen banging on trucks and attacking The Times, the Curia and intruding into Dr Fenech Adami’s home.  Thuggery was the hallmark and one and the same as the party.

Those 70s and 80s years also saw students protesting in an organization called Zghazagh Ghall-Ambjent, when demonstrators standing up against environmental degradation were attacked by partisan thugs.

Fast forward to Joseph Muscat’s born-again stand against the Labour party of old and his image of running fresh, clean politics.  That did not last long.  A few weeks into the new administration and all the building blocks for the organized corruption were being put into action.

It was then just a matter of time that the sleaze began to ooze out onto the ODZ, our neighbor-hoods, streets of terraced houses and the sky-line.  Like a Lochness monster it has now crossed the channel into Gozo and is doing the same there. 

But all of this could not really take place, at least not to degree that it has, if there were a sense of how entrenched all the Labour cabinet including the Prime Minister are in the making of it.

Nothing, no matter how awful it may appear and sound, makes an impact on the sensory organs of the PM. 

Muscat had all the evidence he could need to sack Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi over the Panama Papers.  He shut his mind to what a Prime Minister should do in such circumstances.  Perhaps he had grown numb over the widespread corruption and the total scorn of standards and the law itself.  Posing for photos with President Obama or with Tony Blair and sparing no expense on their appearance (you can’t just throw money at these things), seemed enough for Muscat to keep alive the image of his being clean and on trend. 

He put his own protection and interests above the good of the country and Schembri and Mizzi stayed, along with their empires.

The same is happening now under Robert Abela.  The constant feed of conjectures against Minister Carmelo Abela is not only embarrassing for a government but is a stamp of the swamp that they have no problem habiting.  Like Muscat before him, Abela seems to have a rather soft spot for the Minister who shares office space with him. 

But this is all normal under Labour.  They are immune to the harm inflicted on politics, on the relationship with the people, on the younger generations and on themselves.  Blind as bats hanging upside down from a dark cave roof. 

Same with the environment.  Even President George Vella has finally had a Damascus moment.  We cannot expect that anyone else in the organization is going to take a stand and say enough is enough.  We cannot hold our breath in the hope that there is one mind in the Labour camp, together with the Board members and Chief Executives and whoever, who will actually promote proper measures to stop the destruction of Malta and Gozo and operate in a fair way when taking decisions, listening to the opinions that should matter.

For a government that gives the image of renewal, with young ministers in their ranks and always courting controversy on social issues like the legalization of cannabis and mass events in a pandemic, in reality they are a backward crowd, still hiding under Mintoff’s skirts.  Always seeking protection of the Prime Minister and feeling that they can do whatever they like because thugs are thugs.  And now they have a gym membership and the added cover of wealth to take away the guilt.

We may think that our EU membership was a moment for Malta.  It was not.  Under the suits and the designer polo shirts, there is still a belt and a buckle. Malta is still that Luzzu boat with the big sun and all its rays sticking out and the oar.