I knew an election was afoot when the ambitious member of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, regaled us with an article titled ‘Speaking up for the centre’ (February 12). She told us, in all modesty, that her “journey in politics was not typical”.

She “had no family in politics: a young woman in an old man’s world with no money or backing. But then as now, I had…. a determination to stand up to be counted.”

She went on: “My passion and my resolve have not waned. My belief that politics must be rooted in values has not been watered down. I am as hungry for change as I have ever been, a change that needs to be based on principle. I have always stood unashamedly for the politics of the centre… for politics based on truth, justice and correctness. That is the face of Malta and Gozo I fight to represent… Here I stand. For the centre. Proudly.” 

I was reminded of Jim Hacker’s successful bid for the leadership of his party in Yes, Minister, which he won because – in a parody of Brexit to come – he fought against the introduction of the Euro-sausage: 

“The Europeans have gone too far. They are now threatening the British sausage. They want to standardise it… They’ve turned our pints into litres and our yards into metres… But they cannot and will not destroy the British sausage! Not while I’m here.” In the words of Martin Luther: “Here I stand. I can do no other.” The similarities to Metsola’s cliché-ridden statement are uncanny.

Astute enough to realise that all recent opinion polls indicate that it is unlikely the Nationalist Party candidates will win more than two seats to the European Parliament on May 23, Metsola has been trying hard to burnish her image. ‘Speaking up for the centre’ was her first shot in a doomed effort to send a message, as she put it, “reaffirming the politics of moderation, of studied balance”.

The reality is that it was an attempt at sophistry and spin to cover up what she has actually been doing as a Maltese MEP to tarnish Malta’s name internationally. Metsola, has been one of the leading lights in advocating, through her membership of the Civil Liberties Committee report – a report that she co-authored – for an international public inquiry into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder and her allegations of money laundering.

She has also been intimately involved, together with David Casa, with the Committee on the Rule of Law report on Malta.

Realising that her chances of re-election in May are vulnerable to the justifiable charge that her behaviour in insinuating herself into European Parliamentary committees in order to undermine her own country for misplaced party-political reasons, her latest sally, ‘Holding the country hostage’ (March 30) goes on the attack.

It is written in the laboured Metsola style we were introduced to last year in her article, ‘Pieces of the puzzle’, when she gave us a Sixth Form paean to truth. “Truth,” the MEP said. “is what it is. It is always there breaching the surface spectacularly like a whale and at other times showing itself in instalments, completing the mosaic or jigsaw puzzle, bit by painful bit.”

Those who have read the March 30 competition in The Spectator to find the most “toe-curlingly bad analogies” will recognise her style. One of the entries was almost as banal as Metsola’s recent articles: “Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.”

She used her overwrought ‘Pieces of the puzzle’ to have a go at those who accuse her of undermining Malta internationally, of harbouring “a thwarted and misplaced sense of pseudo-nationalistic pride”.

She has forgotten that her presence in the European Parliament is not to run Malta down but to represent the best interests of the Maltese electors who put her there

‘Holding the country hostage’ is as self-serving – and full of hyperbole – as her earlier articles. “That is the sorry situation this [Labour] government has pushed our country into,” she writes. “Malta has become the hostage. The few individuals at the heart of the sleaze and corruption are milking it for all it’s worth for as long as it lasts, while cunningly stepping to the side, hiding behind the ‘hostage’… There you have it. The criminals have taken themselves out of the equation and they who are harming Malta point the finger at those who would rescue it.

“Corruption is the state of mind that this government exists in at so many levels,” she asserts. “Any semblance of correctness or morality has been abandoned, and anything goes, blatantly and ‘in your face’… And while this hostage country is bleeding, the criminals rub their hands in glee and line their palms with silver, hiding behind the old lie of a pretentious, pretend patriotism.”

She makes these accusations without adducing a shred of evidence in support of them, on the basis presumably that the more mud you fling about will result in some of it being bound to stick.

Her words brought to mind my return to Malta in 1996 to be Eddie Fenech Adami’s adviser on defence matters. I assume it was because people I knew thought, wrongly, I was in a position of influence in Castille that they would come up to me and say: “You know, they’re all corrupt in Castille.” 

It was only later when I rediscovered the Maltese mindset that I realised that people, mostly businessmen who had failed to obtain a contract or other financial advantage from the government, immediately concluded they had failed “għax kollha korrotti” (“because they are all corrupt”). Plus ca change...

When reading Metsola’s articles, the words “pot” and “black” spring immediately to mind. Always avoiding what she has actually achieved to benefit Malta in the European Parliament, Nationalist Party supporters have only to study ‘Holding the country hostage’ to see what she has been saying in Brussels and Strasbourg and judge for themselves whether she is worthy of their vote.

She has allowed her partisan ambition to cloud her judgement. She has forgotten that her presence in the European Parliament is not to run Malta down but to represent the best interests of the Maltese electors who put her there. Despite a clear conflict of interest in a matter affecting her country, she deliberately placed herself on committees where she could most effectively undermine Malta’s international reputation.

PN supporters should remember that there are far better, more honourable PN candidates standing for election on May 23. I can think of at least two.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece