Please sir, can we have some more?

Upon being declared indisputable winner of last year’s general election, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat declared that his first task would be that of reuniting the country.

“It would be easy for us to act arrogantly, but this movement’s strength comes from seeking unity, because Malta must come first and foremost,” Muscat said on the day he was reconfirmed in power following yet another landslide victory.

But the good intentions did not last long. Since then an army of Labour apologists and vassals have regurgitated volley after volley of insults and lies directed at whoever stands in their way towards total domination of the State.

The brutal murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia brought the worst out of the country. Obtuse and arrogant political appointees such as former General Workers Union boss Tony Zarb, former Orizzont editor Josef Caruana, former Labour secretary-general Jason Micallef and the inimitable Glenn Bedingfield, all paid by taxpayers to serve the country and not the Labour Party, threw unity out of the window.

Faced by the inevitable anger of what is unfortunately a minority, compassion and decency were replaced by vitriol and vulgarity. Debate is replaced by verbal abuse. The anger intensifies on all sides and unity is six feet under.

For them, Labour and Muscat come first and foremost. The latest victim of their bullying tactics is Archbishop Charles Scicluna who had the audacity to retweet a link to an article published on The Shift News which compared people’s dependency on the two party system in Malta to the ‘system’ in Naples where organised crime replaced the absent State.

Historically, the Church in Malta is probably as guilty as the two mainstream parties for creating a society which is almost completely dependent on the ‘benevolence’ of politicians; but that’s beside the point. Here you have Bedingfield, an MP who doubles up as government rottweiler snapping at the Archbishop for retweeting an article penned by Cedric Farrugia which explains the way things work in Malta.

More than an attack against Labour, it paints a damming picture of the corrupt system sustained less by the parties’ short-term political expediencies and more by the people’s greed and sense of entitlement. By winning the people’s trust and loyalty, the Camorra earns more money and power. In Malta, it earns politicians votes and power, sometimes followed by money.

The day the majority starts believing in meritocracy, politicians will stop acting like feudal lords. But that will be the day hell freezes over, if it exists at all.

Bedingfield and his foot soldiers are among the greatest beneficiaries of the system. Meritocracy would usurp their temporary glory.

Whoever takes on the system is met with a hatchet in a dark cul-de-sac. The media is silenced through libel suits or adverts. Political opponents are ridiculed, demonised, hounded down. The weaker ones are offered jobs or some form of material compensation.

Let’s face it, that is the way the majority likes it. Do you need a job, a planning permit, a hospital appointment, social housing, a new washing machine or a traffic fine cancelled? Pick up your phone and call your local MP or a street leader. It doesn’t matter if you deserve it or not. Make a call and you’re sorted.

Just like Muscat did during Friday’s charity telethon in aid of Puttinu Cares – the Prime Minister’s Good Friday deed showed how the system works.

His pledge to donate €5 million to an organisation which supports cancer patients who travel abroad for treatment was hailed by his apostles as some sort of miracle. But in reality, government is using the proceeds from the cash-for-passport scheme to keep the people on a leash; at the mercy of his generosity.

Not too different from the shadow welfare systems created by the Mafia, drug cartels and religious fundamentalists in places where the State is absent.

Cancer patients should not depend on government’s charity, or anyone else’s for that matter, to receive the best treatment available. The State should redistribute wealth for the benefit of all citizens. The State should look into providing the best medical treatment for everyone by using its resources in the most efficient way.

Instead we have a Prime Minister who has voluntarily accepted to become a salesman of passports and other assets to please the global rich and the vultures of Castille. He then redistributes the crumbs to satiate the people. Keep them happy and he’ll come out tops in the popularity contest. All this while the big fat cats pig out at the table of the rich and powerful.