You have to credit Labour with one thing – it is ingenious at squandering other people’s money. The Prime Minister set the ball rolling immediately upon taking office by renting his own car to himself. It was an act that degraded the office he holds and which set an example for his loyal Cabinet to follow.

What is going on in this country is a grab-fest by Labour and its cronies, a plundering of the national coffers to please party faithful at any price, as long as they vote for them again.

Meanwhile, the average taxpayer who never asked for what he doesn’t deserve, who doesn’t want a government job, who’s always lived according to his means, foots the bill for other people’s gluttony.

Working silently as a Tagħna Lkoll cash cow is an army injustices board, set up by Labour and which has been busy dishing out promotions to retired army officers, costing this country unknown thousands of euros.

The Home Affairs Ministry would not tell how much this exercise is costing the country. Of course it won’t. Current minister Carmelo Abela is no better than his predecessor who locked horns with the Ombudsman over army promotions. This is not about justice but about the immoral way that Labour does politics.

Heading that board is former army commander Maurice Calleja, the man who claims he voluntary resigned from army chief after his son was charged in court with drug trafficking. He seems to forget there were the Nationalists in government then and their standards were much higher than today’s Labour.

Calleja denies any conflict of interest even when hearing a case that happened under his watch and we can be sure that Labour would agree there because for Labour this is not about justice but electoral promises. Any self-respecting party would have referred former military officers to the Ombudsman but Labour has no self-respect. It has come to personify the corruption of politics in this country and the price to pay for that is huge. Not just financially.

There is even a complaint dating back to the 1950s, concerning an officer who has since passed away but whose family has gone to Calleja’s board for justice. What on earth has Labour been promising to get people’s votes? Promotions for the dead?

Malta was not even an independent country when this terrible injustice happened. Maybe Labour should send the bill for this ‘injustice’ to Her Majesty the Queen. Dom Mintoff would have loved to do that if he was still around. He liked digging his hand inside the British Treasury’s pocket. But with the British cash cow gone, Labour digs into our pockets instead. Today, the taxpayer pays for Labour’s form of justice.

Our country’s limited resources are being eaten away in ways some of us could never imagine. Who would have thought of making a buck out of buying pieces of properties for the government to requisition later? Or of getting employed as a government watchman on a position of trust? Or of landing a government job to look for some stupid garages for rock bands?

Not long ago, Simon Busuttil’s ‘honesty’ slogan sounded naïve. Today, it is this country’s only hope

Labour has been ingenious enough to think up all this and more. It just goes to show that some people cannot make it unless they get a leg up from government, be they businessmen, plain civil servants or singers past their prime.

It is losers, people with an axe to grind or people overcome by greed and jealousy that vote Labour. They vote Labour for injustice not justice. They vote Labour to bum the system at taxpayer expense. In return, they offer their votes. This is the corruption of politics. Giving promotions to the dead is simply the latest Labour grab-fest to come to light. We are being fleeced to finance the dead wood in our society. That makes Labour a deadweight on our lives and our pockets.

• The General Workers’ Union newspapers and the Labour Party media have gotten their knickers in a twist over PN leader Simon Busuttil. The Gaffarena scandals have shaken this government to its core and the only defence Labour and its sidekick, the GWU, can come up with is that those nasty Nationalists did the same in their time. Maybe, but it doesn’t apply to Busuttil.

Someone fed the GWU newspapers a story about a meeting between Busuttil and the Gaffarenas before the election, a report that won them and the Labour media a series of libel suits.

The GWU newspaper l-Orizzont published an affidavit by Joe Gaffarena on that meeting. He had this to say about Busuttil and the formerly illegal petrol station he owns in Qormi: “[Busuttil] became angry, rose from the table and told us: ‘Mr Gaffarena knows what he has to do to open that petrol station’”. The meeting ended abruptly there. Now that is a certificate of political cleanliness if there ever was one.

Gaffarena even went further back in his affidavit. He said that, soon after Lawrence Gonzi was appointed prime minister, he had invited him for dinner at his home.

He doesn’t say what they talked about, only that 15 days later the planning authority told him to close down his petrol station. Those Nationalists were really nasty and ungrateful weren’t they? No wonder Labour won by such a landslide and has so many outstanding promises.

The disconcerting thing about this affidavit is the GWU’s and Labour’s interpretation of it. They assume, because that is how they think, that cosying up with politicians automatically implies favours. Clearly it didn’t work with Gonzi and Busuttil.

As Busuttil plainly put it: he had the courage to say no to Gaffarena, who then went to the Labour Party. Today, the Gaffarenas have their permit for the Qormi petrol station. That just says it all.

When, last year, the PN leader came out with his flagship slogan ‘honesty’ in politics, it sounded a bit lame. Not any longer.

Already then, before the series of scandals that have rattled this government to the point of immobility had come to light, Busuttil had sussed the true problem with Labour: it has corrupted politics.

He promises honesty and that is a tall order because it does not automatically win votes in a country where political patronage is the order of the day. It takes a mature electorate to embrace clean politics when all around they see dirt. And, yet, Busuttil is the only answer to Joseph Muscat’s degenerate way of doing politics.

The PN leader has his work cut out for him. He must weed out anyone inside his party who thinks like Labour.

He must offer realistic solutions and structures that would ensure that a future PN government would not repeat this scandalous grab-fest by party cronies.

Busuttil plans to publish a package of good governance measures by the end of the year. That is a good start but not enough. He will need, above all, to convince the electorate it will be a better way of doing politics.

Clean politics comes at a price because it involves fairness, transparency and serious politicians who are prepared to say no.

Busuttil’s clean leadership credentials have been confirmed, unwittingly of course, by someone who wallows happily with Muscat as Prime Minister.

Labour’s corruption of politics is costing this country dearly because it scares away potential political candidates who could offer so much to this country.

We need bold politicians to join Busuttil to carry out this sea change.

Not long ago, Busuttil’s ‘honesty’ slogan sounded naïve. Today, it is this country’s only hope.

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