It is a blessing that Revel Barker wags his tail on rare occasions. Every time he opens his mouth he puts his foot in it.

He brags of having been once an investigative reporter. He accepts no denial. In his letter, he plunges immediately into the theme of corruption. The crux of the matter are the corrupt politicians and the lack of freedom of the press, if not of speech.

He makes it sound as if corrupt politicians have been around as long as he has been in Malta. He says that Daphne Caruana Galizia’s originality possibly came from plagiarism or of being handed the stuff on a plate, typical of an exposing journalist rather than an investigative one.

People on both sides of the political divide passed information to her, perhaps out of spite.

Another sweeping statement brings him to his cherished endemic criticism of the Maltese; certainly not the Gozitans (that is too near home for comfort). The Maltese have no opinion of their own for they obey the dictates of the party. If it were so, Malta would not have had any floating voters that influence elections. He should know better because he has been here since the early 1970s.

The next point almost accuses the Maltese of hypocrisy. In matters of morality and of religious duties, most Maltese have sincere feelings for Daphne, irrespective of political parties. One last point, the general atmosphere of the argument seems to be one of denigration that the Maltese lack rational judgement. This idea had been making the rounds ever since such ancestral arrogance settled in Malta with the advent of British colonialism in 1800.

In the very last sentence (“the Maltese can’t handle truth”), he hurls an unpardonable, expletive-filled barb typical of him.