B y the time you read this, Her Majesty will know if her realm has been dismembered by the Scots voting for an insufferable smug media-savvy politico.

You might ask: how would it even be conceivable for your common or garden voter to fall for a load of puff, for a policy that seems to consist solely in “well, it’s better than being governed by that lot” and for a lead spokesman who brushes off any and all policy statements from the other side with a “yah, boo, sucks to you” response?

Well, cast your minds back a year and a bit and ask yourself if you need an answer to that question, really.

We’re being governed by a prime minister who made every and all promise that he could in order to hoover up some votes, who accused the other bunch of everything and anything under the sun and who now espouses policies, such as the sale of our citizenship and the wholesale rape of the environment, that he didn’t dare even hint at when he was campaigning.

So if Alex Salmond has triumphed north of Hadrian’s Wall, well, it’s not much of a surprise, really, is it?

The Prime Minister thinks that what he says at home and what he says abroad can be two, different, things

It appears that Owen Bonnici will not be resigning after being prosecuted in the wake of his traffic accident. Seriously? Why should he and why should the Labour spinners make such a virtue out of this? He wasn’t part of some cover-up of cosmic proportions, hiding away the evidence of some crime against humanity or some enormous drug deal.

In fact, his only real transgression was that he was driving himself, the fall-out from the minor accident he was involved in being proof positive as to why people in his position should not do that. Nor should judges and magistrates, for that matter, or commissioners of police or other senior officers, though the lower down the scale you go, the less impelling this becomes.

But the sad fact is that when you are part of a party that delights in stoking class-envy (they’ve got over it, incidentally) you start to believe your own rhetoric and try to be one of the people, which then gets you into hot water when things happen to you that happen to “one of the people”.

Such is life but it remains true that there’s no need for Bonnici to resign and there was no need for his ministry to make such a meal of it and such a meal of the fact that he was to be prosecuted. It may come as a surprise to the spinners employed by the young man but those of us who live out here in the real world know that the law is the same for everyone and that everyone, including their boss, is equal in front of the law.

Sadly, by making such a thing about this statement of the bleedin’ obvious, the rude mechanicals betrayed a degree of ingrained incomprehension of the reality of the rule of law that is worrying.

Similarly, the fact that Miriam Dalli MEP will not be questioning her father-in-law when his nomination as commissioner responsible for environmental and such-like issues in Jean-Claude Juncker’s Commission comes before the European Parliament made the news and raised eyebrows.

I mean, what did anyone expect, that Dalli would be drawing herself up to her full height and seeking to dump bucketloads of opprobrium on her pop-in-law, trying to get him voted off the Commission?

Or is the fuss that was made of her not participating in her in-law’s inquisition a result of the fact that the people who are making the fuss, the commenters online, in their heart of hearts, think that she’d be trying to help him out, in breach of her obligations as an MEP?

It’s not as if the guy doesn’t need all the help he can get, of course, having been made responsible for environmental issues, including hunting, of all things. With his previous experience as a member of Joseph Muscat’s Cabinet behind him, Karmenu Vella should face an uphill struggle and a half.

After paying lip service to the aspirations of tree huggers countrywide in the run-up to the election, Muscat’s government has virtually rolled over and allowed its tummy to be tickled by the developers and the hunters, so the people who might want to make Vella’s life a tad difficult at the confirmation hearings have plenty of ammunition to chuck at him.

But no one with an ounce of sense would have expected his daughter-in-law to participate in this, one way or the other.

This didn’t stop the spinners trying to make a big deal about it, leading anyone with even the slightest of classical educations to wonder out loud whether, forsooth, the maiden doth protest too much.

Someone who isn’t troubled by maidenly foibles, clearly, is Vella’s former boss, Muscat. This redoubtable gent had the brass neck to stand up in New York a few days ago and tell people, apparently with a straight face, that it is not their money we’re after when we flog them a shiny new Maltese passport, it’s their talent and their networks.

I’ve blogged about this, and other commentators, notably Ivan Fenech, a few days ago, have made similar points, but they bear repeating.

Seriously, and from what one hears without blushing, Muscat first slapped a cool million on the price tag of a Maltese passport, telling his subjects (us, in case you were wondering who) that the cash he would be raking in from selling the things would be our economic saviour, the solution to all our financial ills, the ones he inherited from GozniPN, and then he stood up in front of a foreign audience to tell them to forget about the money, it’s their talent he wants.

Now, this is evidence of a number of things about the Prime Minister.

Firstly, it is evidence that the Prime Minister thinks that what he says athome and what he says abroad can be two, different, things.

Secondly, it is evident the Prime Minister thinks that he can fool all of the people all of the time, expecting us to believe that if an impoverished Somali who can play the cello like a god were to wash up on our shores, he would be handed a Maltese passport, no questions asked, “because it’s his talent we want, not his money”.

Thirdly, if the hypothesis immediately preceding this is invalid, it is evidence that the Prime Minister thinks that talent is measured by money and by money alone because the only criterion for getting a Maltese passport before Muscat’s New York declaration was the availability of money to pay for it.

While on the subject of evidence, did you notice how it’s all starting again?

A few months ago, we had the sight and sound of baying hounds salivating for the hide of the person accused of abusing a minor in his care.

Then, just a bit later, we had the sight and sound of vengeful angels soaring in defence of someone accused of abusing a minor in his care, because someone said he’s a nice guy.

Now, very recently, the baying hounds are back because an innocent baby, horribly, was injured and there was no one saying what a nice chap the accused is.

In all cases, very little of the real evidence is known and people are basing their opinions, and their comments, on half-baked readings of news reports. It’s about time someone took a good long look at those comments boards and deployed a virtual blue pencil.

imbocca@gmail.com

www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20