We began this week with two massive crowd assemblies. First on Monday the protest against Jean Paul Sofia’s death and in support of the battle admirably waged by his mother for a public inquiry to be set up, apart from the magisterial inquiry already on the death.

Then on Tuesday an equally impressive crowd turned up on the Granaries for the annual Isle of MTV music fest despite the atrocious heat.

Let’s stop here and see where these two events take us.

At the end, the Sofia protest succeeded so well it made itself redundant. Just before it happened it had collected some unexpected adherents, from Marie Louise Coleiro to the General Workers Union to, wonder of wonders, Joseph Muscat himself (though it does not seem he turned up).

Then too, just before the protest, Robert Abela made a monumental U-turn and announced he was now in favour of a public inquiry after getting his 40 MPs to vote against the very idea just four days previously. By the time of writing, it does not seem real details of the public inquiry have been drawn up and who will be entrusted to ensure its proper running.

For even as he was on paper doing a U-turn, Robert Abela was continuing to undermine his own credibility. Typically of the man, he tried to shift the blame on to the magistrate handling the inquiry and, in conjunction with the Attorney General, made it appear she had asked for an extension when in fact it appears the inquiry has been completed. How can one trust a prime minister now competing with Boris Johnson?

Then, after the protest was over but Castile Square was still full of people, Robert Abela chose to exit from Castile by the main door in full view of everyone (when the building has many side entrances, some quite unobtrusive). He had a rather inane grin on his face but was then hounded out with the whole square shouting “Shame on you“. What was he aiming at? Did he want to offer himself as a human sacrifice?

Then came the heat wave and inevitably the power cuts mainly as a result of flaws in the distribution system, as usually happens in times of high temperature. We suffer from this each year but seem incapable of really tackling the problem. Usually we have additional problems such as insufficient electricity generation, etc.

The end result is power cuts lasting a whole night and recurring and massive frustration all around as people are forced to do without air-conditioning and have to throw away food in freezers which has gone bad. Who will compensate households and industries?

I also notice that neither the official media and any other seem to have offered viewers/readers suggestions to minimise the impact. So everyone was up in arms vituperating the government, the minister, Enemalta.

To this one must add the daily battle on the streets because of overcrowding, road works and other issues which make living in Malta a daily challenge. People then just give up.

It need not be like that.

But since the decision has been taken to go for growth the fastest way possible we continuously battle with an insufficient infrastructure, are caught short of staffing levels at every juncture and race to the bottom through the employment of inadequate, untrained, people whether Maltese and foreigners. Planning is a word not found in our dictionary.

It is also due to some wrong choices. We spend millions on new roads to pander to the car industry instead of trying to tackle the overall issue of mass transportation. We pander to the construction industry and the contractors because those are “our friends” rather than the population at large. We neglect the issues and needs of the population as a whole and instead try to come up with what pleases minorities.

And of course we have turned Malta into a large version of Paceville and have lost for ourselves and for our guests any attraction Malta could have had as a place for relaxation, peace and recuperation.

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