So Marlene, miskina, is feeling a little lonely in Parliament these days. But instead of sitting around sulking and waiting to get booted out at the next election, she’s decided to do something ‘practical’ instead. Marlene has decided to outflank both Labour and the Nats and form her very own centre-left political party. And good luck to her… she’s going to need it.

But she did get me thinking: obviously whatever incarnation her party will assume, it will have about as much hope of getting into Parliament at the next general election as poor old Jo-seff will have of growing a thick thatch of hair.

So what will it take to form a viable third party here in super-polarised Malta? I’ll tell you: What is the one thing that will absolutely guarantee to get the prospective politician your vote? It is the cast-iron, copper-bottomed certainty that you – the voter – will directly benefit greatly from so doing.

So with this in mind, today Sunday, April 10, 2016, I, Sylvanus am officially launching my very own, brand new, unsullied by sleaze political party – the MFP (the Me First Party).

Yes, this is a movement that unashamedly will give both the voter and the MP precisely what they want. The ethos of the MFP is… wait for it… greed, pure and simple. And, as Gordon Gecko (aka Michael Douglas) once said: “Greed is good.” You bet it is.

We absolutely guarantee to make every single voting-age person in the Maltese islands very, very rich – as well as making us MFP MPs equally affluent. Yes, unlike the current crop, we make no secret of the fact that everybody wins when we are in power.

And how, pray, are we going to be able to spread such munificence among the Maltese populace?

We’ll hand out loads of cash, direct from the country’s coffers, to each and every Maltese citizen

Simple, we’ll hand out loads of cash, direct from the country’s coffers, to each and every Maltese citizen. Oh sure, we’ll bankrupt the country, of course we will. And that’s all part of the masterplan.

But the very first thing we’d have to do would be to guarantee (as far as you can guarantee) our security, by joining Nato. These are not times for wishy washy neutrality. The enemies are at the gate – literally – are no respecters of anybody’s neutral status, so Nato it is. If only for their ethos of ‘A strike against one Nato country is a strike against all Nato countries’.

But back to the MFP’s policy. In order to lavish stacks of cash on every citizen of these blessed isles we would naturally have to have some means of replenishing the coffers afterwards.

No problem: We all know there are oceans of oil beneath the seas around our coastline, we’d bring in a seasoned multinational, with a proven track record, someone like BP or Total – and tell them to get on with finding the black stuff. As soon as they do, we’d do a deal with the same – or other – oil giant, to bring it to the surface it, refine it and then market it.

We would, of course, take the lion’s share of the revenue, but we’d certainly make it worthwhile for our partner oil prospector to earn a crust as well.

But that will take time – and we would want to get in as much cash as possible, once we distribute the wealth we already have.

So… here comes the next MFP strategy of sheer genius. We will send begging letters to a whole string of financial institutions, blagging each and every one for a free handout. We’ll approach the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the EU (naturally), the government of Saudi Arabia, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Sultan of Brunei, Mark Zukerberg… and anyone else with a few bucks to spare that we can think of.

We won’t be asking for loans, oh no… we want no-strings grants, pure and simple. We will make it clear that if they want Malta to remain part of the free world, then they will have to put their hands into their pockets… to make sure we stay that way.

Oh yes, at long last I think we have hit upon a way to introduce a third political party into Maltese politics with a reasonable certainty of it flourishing and growing into a dominant force.

Vote for me, vote MFP!