“On Comino we are already working to draw up a plan”.  Already?  Labour’s been in power for almost a decade and Clayton Bartolo hasn’t even started to draw up a plan? Where does Labour find such pathetic mediocrities with massively inflated egos?

“There are meetings going on at the moment, there is a committee, made up of several stakeholders, which is meeting to start to develop this sustainable and holistic plan for the whole island”.  He thinks his sheer pomposity can cover up for his catastrophic incompetence. He thinks he will impress us with his “holistic” and “sustainable” plan for the “whole island”. All 3.5 kilometres squared. That’s half the size of a football pitch. And Clayton is still to start to develop a plan.

And what’s this committee anyway?  Has anybody heard of it?  Who’s on it? Who are these stakeholders?  Maybe his dad, his uncle or Josianne Cutajar’s brother and the Gozo Minister’s canvasser.  Or maybe Joseph Portelli’s buddy, Daniel Refalo. Graffitti’s certainly not on it.  So who is representing us on that committee?

Clayton regaled us with more of his pearls of wisdom - “Comino is not simply Blue Lagoon but it is an island”. Really? “Sustainability and the environment need to be respected but…..”.  There’s always a but with Bartolo, and it’s always the same but. “But we need to realise and understand that there is an economic aspect”, Clayton lectured. You see Labour needs to make its money somehow.  You need to understand that.  You, the stupid people of Malta must realise that Clayton’s not going to wake up to go to his office every morning for nothing. And what about his dad? What about his friends?  How are they going to get rich? That’s not going to happen just with “sustainability” or “environment” is it? So you better “realise and understand” that Labour’s got to sustain its friends, family and financial backers - that’s what sustainability is really all about. Sustain the sustainers.

“We have to find the balance and therefore we need to work to find that balance”, Bartolo insisted. Didn’t his boss tell us a few weeks back that the right balance between people and business had been struck in Comino? Is Bartolo intentionally undermining Abela by stating the exact opposite of what the Prime Minister announced?  If the balance was struck weeks ago, why is Bartolo still working to find it? Maybe he’s retaliating after Abela kicked his girlfriend out.

How will you maintain the balance and will you be adopting some of the proposals that NGOs put forward?, Bartolo was asked. More of Bartolo’s flatulent pomposity followed. “One of the things Graffitti mentioned was waste management, and there we are already working to implement measures to see that there will be better waste management not only in the Blue Lagoon but over the whole of Comino”.  The whole of Comino again. That huge expanse of land. “In that respect we have already started and there is a lot of work being done between the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Gozo, which is responsible for cleanliness in Blue Lagoon”.  So what was all this work Bartolo “is already working to implement” on waste management? “Effectively we are seeing that there is more regular cleaning of the island”.  Is that it? Bartolo’s waste management for Comino consists entirely of getting some of those idlers on the GWU jobless scheme to pick up discarded ice cream wrappers, plastic cups and other rubbish.  Just more regularly.

And listen carefully to what Clayton said.  It’s not his fault that the Blue Lagoon is a rubbish heap.  That’s Clint’s problem not Clayton’s.  Don’t mix them up.  Clint is the trapper who’s in favour of hunting and is responsible for the hunting portfolio.  He’s the really polite one who calls journalists “a bunch of imbeciles”. Clayton is the other one - the one who employed his girlfriend at his secretariat but tried to hide the fact by getting his friend Clint to put her on the books of the Gozo ministry. It seems they’re no longer such friends anymore.  Clayton is blaming Clint for the mess in Comino.  It’s Clint’s fault, not mine, Clayton protests.

But Clint’s on my side, I can’t blame him, Clayton thought.  Who can I blame then? I know, just blame the people.  It’s always the irresponsible, indecent people of Malta who are to blame. “The misfortune is that despite the bins available, there are irresponsible people who instead of using the bins throw their rubbish in areas which are not easily accessible - so this means we have challenges to overcome”.  You see. It’s our fault.  Not Clint’s or Clayton’s.  It’s us. We’ve messed Comino up.  Caring Clint put bins on Comino. It’s us, the irresponsible louts, who keep throwing our rubbish on the rocks.  And you can’t expect the GWU jobless workers to risk injuring themselves walking on the rocks to pick up the rubbish.  That’s too huge “a challenge to overcome”.

So Clayton turned into the headmaster chiding his students. “At least do the decent thing and use the bins”, he sniggered “that is a huge responsibility”. “So if we truly want to solve this problem of Comino, everybody must do his part…. I expect the general public to have the decency to at least, in these small things, to act responsibly”. So now we’re told.  Clayton has nothing to do with it. Clint neither. It’s us. We are the problem. We’ve messed it up. We are the ones creating the “Comino problem”.  If none of us went there, Comino would be beautiful. It would be clean. So stop moaning and just put your litter in the bins.  Comino problem solved.

So do you have a timeline for this holistic masterplan?, the reporter asked as she got sucked into the vortex of Clayton’s hyperbole. “Things are certainly going to change by next Summer, so we won’t have the same things we had this Summer”, Clayton boldly reassured her, and us. We can sleep easy now. Clayton’s got his “committee of several stakeholders already working to start to develop this sustainable and holistic plan for the whole island”.  So you’ve been warned - Comino is condemned. By Clayton and Clint, with a little help from their friends and family.