Carnival in Gozo is a time of reckoning for politicians because it’s the only time of year when those with something to say can say it without fear of retribution.

When I was young, and the Nadur carnival still had vestiges of the macabre and wasn’t yet commercialised and Maltese-ified, masked figures would come out of the alleys brandishing raw meat dripping with blood. As time passed, more and more people started showing up to the village dressed not to impress but to make political statements.

I’m sure there were probably many runners-up for best costume but the one that got all the press was a rather large group of fluorescent pigs surrounding a masked woman in a fur coat and sunglasses holding up a sign with “Kulħadd jitħanżer” written on it.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, this direct quote is taken from one of the leaked chats between Rosianne Cutajar and Yorgen Fenech – the same chats that were part of a libel suit that Cutajar dropped just last week.

It was this image that I had in mind as I read that David Walliams was paid €120,000 to host the Malta Film Awards. The same awards which were meant to cost €400,000 in total and ended up costing €1.3 million.

Perhaps it’s time to extend our carnival days, name ourselves carnival island, and call it a day

I have no idea how you can go over a budget by more than a million with other people’s money or what the rest of the money went to after Walliams’s generous payday. But, as usual, it was an irony not lost on me that in a country where people in the arts and the film industry are always complaining about the lack of funding allotted to them, the amount spent on this peacock pageant was beyond astronomical.

Then again, throwing parties with tax money has always been our forte because, for some reason, Maltese people don’t seem to consider it to be real money that has come out of their very own pockets.

Of course, while all this was going on, a Nationalist MP came out and called for smaller-bedroom apartments as part of a rent reduction strategy. Apparently, it’s not greed and cost of living that are driving rent prices so high that locals can no longer afford a roof over their heads; we should be making the chicken coops that are already being built even smaller.

It would seem that “Kulħadd jitħanżer” only counts if you’re a government official – everyone else has to settle for scraps and tiny dwelling places. It’s this kind of “Let them eat cake” attitude that started the French Revolution, and, yet, the vast majority of our people act like lambs skipping merrily to slaughter.

There are people close to starvation and homelessness, and instead of buckling down and finding new ways to offer people decent housing, our government refuses to do its job and govern and looks away as incredible amounts of our money are spent on frivolities.

What kind of country is this that has so little regard for its stressed-out, exhausted people?

Perhaps it’s time to extend our carnival days, name ourselves carnival island, and call it a day. At least, we would finally be able to make money off how ridiculous we are.