“So what are we going to do about our number one problem?”

“Which is?”

“Our national bloody airline.”

“Well minister, if you want my opinion… ”

“Which is what I just requested.”

“Quite. If you want to know what I think, I reckon we should just cut it adrift.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Let it sink or swim of its own volition.”

“No, we can’t do that.”

“Why not? If it’s a liability today, it’ll be a double liability tomorrow.”

“Yes but this is not a business decision, this has to be a political decision.”

“It comes to the same thing in the end. If it’s a bad investment now, it’s not going to become a better one, just by hanging around for a while.”

“I suppose not. But there’s no way we could just simply abandon the national airline; it would be electoral suicide.”

“Hmm, personally I think you’ve actually already committed electoral suicide, without any help from the national airline.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do the words, Mizzi, Schembri, Musc… I mean, Egrant and Panama ring a bell?”

“They do, but I think by the time the election comes around the people will have forgotten about all that stuff.”

“I doubt it, but anyhow you want to know what to do about your bankrupt national airline, right?”

“So what do you suggest?”

“What you need is a sugar-daddy airline.”

“A what?”

“And airline rich enough to absorb all your losses and then some – and to finance it for an indefinite period.”

“We thought we had one in Alitalia.”

“No chance, they were, and are as skint as you are.”

“So we have since discovered.”

“No, what you need is an Etihad or Emirates oil-rich carrier that would pick up the tab for your lot for ever and a day.”

“And what makes you think one or either of those two would want to saddle itself with our defunct liability?”

“Absolutely! Nobody in their right mind would want to get lumbered with that.”

You tell them you are giving them an unprecedented opportunity to invest in a cast-iron racing certainty

“So?”

“So what?”

“What must we do to set about convincing them to invest in a dead… or at least moribund duck?”

“You do what you politicians do best.”

“Ahem… which is?”

“You lie through your teeth about it.”

“Er… go on.”

“You tell them you are giving them an unprecedented opportunity to invest in a cast-iron racing certainty sure thing.”

“And you think a canny Arab airline would fall for that?”

“Depends how you sell it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have to offer them something in return.”

“Well it wouldn’t be money, they’ve got that coming out of their ears.”

“Exactly, so you have to offer them something they really, really want.”

“Like what?”

“Like… well, like lobbying for them to stage the football World Cup or even the Olympic Games.”

“And you reckon that would do it… it would save our national airline?”

“Definitely.”

“But do you really think we… little Malta could bring the Olympics to the Gulf states?”

“No, but what’s important is that they should think you can.”

“Hmm, I don’t know… ”

“Look minister, do you want to save your national airline?”

“Of course I do, you know that. But your idea seems… pie in the sky.”

“Pie in the sky now maybe. But let’s face it, if you don’t try something radical and different, you’ll pretty soon have bugger all in the sky.”

“So we tell the sheikhs that we can help to get them the Olympic Games.”

“No, you behave like proper politicians and absolutely promise them that you can get them the Olympics.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. About the only thing you don’t promise them is that you can get them the Winter Olympics. That may be just a tad out of their reach.”

“Right, well, I’ll give it a go.”

“Excellent, oh… just one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“If you are successful and you do negotiate a rescue package with a Gulf airline… you absolutely have to insist that they promise never ever to bring back those disgusting school dinner inflight meals.