Opposition leader Simon Busuttil has started a new tactic to convince gullible voters that he wants to “clean up local politics”.

It is said that talk is cheap. In his case it is even cheaper.

Busuttil keeps repeating that he and his party are in favour of the American University of Malta but not at Żonqor Point. Even before this project was announced, Sadeem Group had requested and received an appointment with Busuttil in order to give him a presentation about the project since they considered it to be of national importance.

An appointment was fixed but called off at the last minute by the Nationalist Party.

A Radio 101 presenter who is very close to Busuttil, David Thake, told Thaer Mukbel of the Sadeem Group: “Why don’t you go to Spain?” And, still, Busuttil keeps repeating that he and his party are in favour of the project but not at Żonqor.

Another chance for Busuttil to prove that talk is not cheap came when It-Torċa claimed a number of PN civil servants occupying high positions of trust and who were left in their place by the Labour government were caught “red handed” passing on very sensitive information to Tonio Fenech when he was the PN’s chief spokesman for finance. The story was backed by e-mails.

Instead of condemning what these people had been doing, or, at least, promising that no such thing would be permitted under his watch in future, Busuttil and his party described this story and the Prime Minister’s strong reaction as being “an attack on the freedom of association”.

So before trying to clean up local politics, Busuttil had better look at himself and start cleaning up his own way of doing politics.