If I see one more person say that the institutions are working, I am going to take out my eyes with a spoon. We have more people begging for pardons than I have had hot dinners and if this whole situation was not farcical enough, the prime minister has yet again inexplicably instructed the police commissioner to do his job and investigate Macbridge and the allegations stemming from it even though the police are meant to work independently of the government. And who can forget the fact that Keith Schembri and Co are currently languishing in jail because the former leader of the opposition took it upon himself to do the police’s work and carry evidence of money laundering to the court in 2017? You can say many things about our system, but the fact that it is working is not one of them.

I am writing this on Freedom Day while watching the prime minister stand in front of the monument that should mean so much to us as a people and I cannot help but choke on the bitter irony of it all. On the one day when we really should be celebrating how far we should have come, on the one day when we should feel free, we have never been more enslaved. The best part? We have no big, bad coloniser to blame for this. We did this all ourselves. Or rather a few people did this while most of us cheered them on. While most of us continue to cheer them on.

This Easter, maybe you can take a moment to mentally tally everything the country has been through in the past few years

When Schembri presented himself as the architect of New Labour, it was probably one of the truest things to ever come out of his mouth. Slowly but surely, every single institution was taken hostage and either neutralised or dismantled. People were picked for their loyalty to the new crown and their own pockets. Skill was not relevant since they were not going to be the ones running the show anyway. Intelligence would probably offer resistance and opposition at some point or another so that was not invited either. Like some demonic octopus, the tentacles spread and spread and would have continued to choke anything in their path had it not been for one man trying to escape Malta on his yacht.

It has been almost a year and a half since that happened and yet we still wait for justice. Justice which has been made a million times harder because of all the time that has been permitted to pass and all the evidence that has been allowed to disappear.

It is breathtaking, but perhaps not as breathtaking as the current cannabis white paper which conveniently made an appearance in the midst of this mess or the gratuitous announcement that a shadow minister is going to be investigated for a traffic violation. It is a leaf right out of the ex-prime minister’s playbook albeit a much less colourful one. You see you really cannot teach an old electorate new tricks, especially when your predecessor is so much better at them. The godlike status enjoyed by Muscat is not something that can be inherited as anyone who came after Mintoff in the early years can no doubt bitterly attest to.

This Easter while you are enjoying what little family you can in a pandemic-ravished world and thinking of sacrifices and new beginnings, maybe you can take a moment to mentally tally everything the country has been through in the past few years. That should tell you everything you need to know about the institutions and their workings.