When Daniel interpreted the dream of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon concerning a giant statue of a king with legs of iron but feet of clay, he prophesied the decline and fall of the empire that was built on weak foundations.

I could not help thinking of Daniel after last Monday’s massive popular demonstration in support of the courageous fight for a public inquiry into the death of Jean Paul Sofia at a construction site.

How similar the Babylon of the tyrant Nebuchadnezzar is to Malta under, first, Joseph Muscat and, now, Robert Abela, who are both firmly in the hands of big business.

Such businesses expect to get their projects approved, carried out without supervision and protected from the law when and if they break the law and cause the death of their own workers, of innocent other workers and of even more innocent people in the sanctity of their own homes.

Our prime minister has shown to all and sundry to have feet of brittle clay that are crumbling underneath him. He believes his position is untouchable; his father, the former president, advises and protects him, the sycophants on PBS and One TV sing his praises, the developers who finance him steal our land, our ODZ plots, our seashore and also our seas. However, they must now realise that there is one thing more powerful than them.

It is the people who have finally woken up because “you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time” - Abraham Lincoln.

Having the effrontery to walk out of his ivory turret in Castille to walk through the hostile crowd was the biggest mistake of the evening. First the U-turn, after being forced by his own party to break his holiday leave and return to declare, in breach of the parliamentary vote taken only five days earlier, that, in spite of a majority vote by 40 Labour MPs not to call a public inquiry, he would act unilaterally and call such an inquiry.

Apart from defying a decision of the highest authority of the country, our national parliament, the U-turn was also taken just minutes before one of the largest cross-party demonstrations against him was about to take place.

Feeling the widespread resentment in the country, the grandees of the Labour Party must have trembled in their shoes, feeling that the period of making hay while the sun shines, of feathering their nests with direct orders, of getting rich off quangos and utterly useless jobs and contracts to be paid out of our taxes for doing nothing, of giving jobs to the boys, of selling out national assets to crooks from Lebanon, India, Pakistan, US and Azerbaijan, would soon be over.

They called our king with clay feet to return and eat humble pie and then he dared even face the angry crowd. He is lucky to get away with just the hurling of insults because the mood at Castille was not of love as the mother of Jean Paul Sofia was begging all to show.

We are all Maltese first and foremost and our rulers are acting like anti- Maltese trying to destroy all that makes us unique- Jean Vassallo

It was the mood of anger, of being fed up with a dictatorial and undemocratic regime set up by Muscat and the gang of four, and continued with feet-of-clay Abela.

The end is nigh. Once a dictator shows that he cannot dictate any longer but begins to waver to the demands of angry people, he cannot just feed them cake, they want blood. They want a new system to be put in place. They want a change in the economic model, they want more discipline, more enforcement of the rules and regulations.

They want less cheap foreign labour. They want the Malta they knew and loved to be given back to them. They want corrupt businessmen to be held accountable.

Enough is enough. Daniel’s prediction did not come instantly in Babylon but it came. Same here.

Even Vladimir Putin has begun to waver. Why should Abela be different? He is unloved and will soon be irrelevant. The Stivalas, Portellis, Polidanos, Zammit Tabonas and others cannot continue without paying the consequences of their actions.

Once it starts to waver, the people feel the weakness and then start prodding from all fronts on all issues, knowing that, if crowds of 30,000 and more can convene, then the government will give in on all fronts and start to act fairly and democratically or fall and lose an election.

Either result is welcome.

All that is being asked for is to have a decent European country that is driven by a moral compass and the real rule of law with an objective and independent police, unconnected and not politically motivated authorities.

In Rużar Briffa’s historic poem Jum ir-Rebħ, one finds this prophetic shout that could be heard whispered in Monday’s crowd of all ages, political colour and faith: “U il-kotra qamet f’daqqa – u għajtet: ‘Jien Maltija!’”

Yes, we are all Maltese first and foremost and our rulers are acting like anti-Maltese trying to destroy all that makes us unique for their own greed.

Enough!

John Vassallo is a former ambassador to the EU.