“So get out, I am kicking you out, get out,” the confabulating Speaker Anglu Farrugia shouted. “The chamber is suspended for a few minutes until the person concerned (unintelligible sounds)….Aquilina behaves himself,” Farrugia added in mangled Maltese.  It is cruelly ironic that the man selected by Labour for an unprecedented third term as Speaker of the House, cannot speak either English or Maltese. Listen to him ranting at Karol Aquilina.  What does “kompormoment” mean? Or “opportament”? You won’t find Farrugia’s neologisms in any Maltese dictionary.

But more importantly why did Anglu Farrugia lose his rag? Why was he kicking an MP out of the chamber? Because the MP dared to criticise him. Farrugia’s repetitive indecent rulings  and decisions serve only to undermine justice, sabotage the work done by the former Standards Commissioner and shield Labour from any and every scrutiny and embarrassment.

Karol Aquilina hadn’t noticed that Anglu Farrugia was just declared above the law.  Labour’s handpicked Standards Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi in his latest bizarre ruling concluded that the supreme Anglu Farrugia is not subject to the same rules to which all other MPs are. The Standards Commissioner just endowed the great Speaker with privileges that nobody else enjoys. It is now official. Anglu Farrugia can do what he likes. The Standards Commissioner will not investigate him, no matter how degradingly vile his behaviour.

And true to form, Anglu Farrugia took the ruling to heart.  It’s gone to his head.  He thinks he’s above reproach, that nobody has the right to hold him to account, nobody can criticise him. Lese majeste’ has been introduced for Anglu Farrugia’s benefit - those who criticise him will face the power of his wrath.

Anglu Farrugia didn’t need any encouragement to humiliate himself further with his sycophantic decisions. Now he’s been given carte blanche to do as he pleases.

In the last week alone he’s taken four obscene decisions.  First he voted against adopting the Commissioner for Standards’ report that found 18 ministers and parliamentary secretaries in breach of ethics when they squandered tens of thousands of taxpayers’ money on partisan adverts in the supplement of their own party’s newspaper.  The former Commissioner recommended they should pay the money back.  They abused their office.  It was misuse of public funds to promote themselves and bolster their own party’s coffers and suck up to their leader. Their brazen daylight robbery is inexcusable and unjustifiable. 

But instead of doing the right thing, accepting the Commissioner’s report and condemning Labour’s profligate ministers to pay back what they stole from the public, he exonerated them. Their shamelessness was completely eclipsed by Farrugia’s.

But that wasn’t enough. When Arnold Cassola requested Labour’s other puppet, newly appointed Standards Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi to investigate Farrugia’s vote against the Commissioner, Azzopardi refused to do so. Azzopardi claimed that he fully agreed with the conclusions of his predecessor’s report but that he could not proceed against Farrugia as that would create a conflict between his role and that of the Speaker. In effect the Standard Commissioner provided Farrugia with his own personal nolle prosequi.

So when the Nationalist party requested an amendment to Labour’s amendment to the motion calling for a public inquiry into Jean Paul Sofia’s death, Anglu Farrugia blocked it.  Labour, in its disgraceful amendment to the PN’s request for a public inquiry, removed all reference to a public inquiry.  Instead they demanded the inquiring magistrate speed up her inquiry. Here was the Labour’s massive majority in the legislative interfering with the judiciary, applying pressure on a specific magistrate and defying the fundamental principles of a democracy. And Anglu Farrugia prevented the opposition party in parliament from submitting an amendment to Labour’s pathetic amendment.

When Karol Aquilina objected and pointed out the blinding obvious - that Anglu Farrugia is obscene - Farrugia lost his cool.  He kicked Aquilina out of the chamber and then suspended the sitting in such a fit that he created another of his growing collection of youtube classics. His latest “kompormoment-opportament” will surely displace his “tuks force” and his “uuuuuuubiquitous” gems. Farrugia’s epic  “uuuuuubiquitous” address at a Commonwealth meeting has been watched more than 19,000 times. His other classic comedy sketch in Uganda was watched 7,500 times. The man is totally incoherent.  He is the laughing stock of the country. He is the king of slapstick. He’s the worst advert possible for his Alma Mater.  How on earth did this man get a law degree? The man can’t even string a sentence together.

But Anglu Farrugia is not just a source of hilarity to the country’s youth. He is dangerous. He scraped the bottom when he refused to allow Jean Paul Sofia’s mother entry to the strangers’ gallery with a photo of her son during the vote in parliament on the public inquiry. Farrugia is not only obscene, he is callous. He’s slithering through muck to defend Labour. He’s done it before when he rejected proposals to name a parliamentary hall in honour of murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.  Farrugia doesn’t even have any respect for those murdered through Labour’s omissions or commissions - or their grieving families.

Farrugia is a walking national embarrassment. He is a Basil Fawlty figure who plods from one humiliation to another. Nobody can quite believe Farrugia’s unlimited ability to demean himself. Nobody can fathom the man’s complete lack of even the slightest molecule of self-respect.

The only right decision Joseph Muscat ever took was getting rid of Anglu Farrugia from Deputy Leader. Even Muscat recognised the man’s gross ineptitude and his despicable spinelessness. And then cynically appointed him Speaker - ensuring he wouldn’t damage the party further. Muscat knew how easily Farrugia’s silence and compliance could be bought. He was right. From spilling the beans about the fourth floor, Farrugia quickly switched to silence about Labour’s shady deals.  He even withheld information from an inquiry looking into the barbaric assassination of a journalist to protect Labour. Labour got rid of him and foisted him onto the nation.