I was tempted for a fleeting second to write about Joseph Muscat again, about the pornographic nastiness of the interview he gave Reuters, about the callous cruelty of his remark that he expected to sit back and munch on popcorn squealing with delight at Daphne Caruana Galizia’s suffering, crushed by his years-long campaign to isolate her and dehumanise her.

I was tempted to list the reasons why his line that Daphne was killed when she had become irrelevant is beyond cruel and evil. It begs questions like whether Muscat would have preferred she had been killed when she had been relevant or whether he objected to her killing only because the perpetrators had been “stupid”, as he described them, rather than murderous, evil, cruel bastards.

Then, I thought it was not Daphne who was irrelevant. Muscat speaks this way because he cannot bear to face up to his premature exit from his delusions of world domination: he’s politically dead, constantly justifying himself, witnessing the crumbling of his reputation and the growing ire of most of his former supporters. And, then, I remembered I’d be stuck in the past where Muscat was invincible, munching on popcorn, enjoying the fruits of his corruption.

I chose instead to walk free of him, to worry instead about the rubble and the ruin he left behind, the scorched earth we must till, the soil we must turn with the ashes of his victims.

I decided instead to write about the periodic reports issued last week by European institutions, half blinded with optimism, hopeful that Malta is grown up enough to heal itself, that the Muscat years were a freakish blip in an otherwise smooth history of loyal democracy.

The European Commission and the delegation from the European Parliament could not ignore the cheerful memos from the local authori­ties on how they’re pushing through with “unprecedented rule of law reforms”.

In and of itself, explicit commitment to reform is a massive improvement on the Muscat years. Muscat’s government declared itself the apex of history, the non plus ultra of general happiness. He ruled over the best of times. Malta was “the best in Europe”. That was not just a boast, it was a policy headline.

There was nothing that Muscat needed to reform because no one could improve on the perfect.

That insufferable arrogance pushed the European Parliament delegation to tell the head of a government of an EU member state who enjoyed the confidence of his parliament and had won a resounding majority at an election two years earlier that he needed to resign.

Robert Abela is a bit like the child who knows how to ingratiate himself with irate parents who have just punished their elder sibling. He flutters his lashes and rolls his doe eyes, projecting virginal innocence and making an unseemly effort to appear entirely different from his muddy predecessor.

Wanting to look different is acknowledging that Muscat is no role model. The Europeans are impressed by the rhetoric of making a clean break with Muscat, of turning pages and leaving behind the pillars of salt that were once the Labour Party politicians who ruled over Gomorrah.

The Europeans are impressed with the words. They are less amazed by the actual results. There aren’t any.

Judges are just as unable as they’ve ever been to secure the conviction of mafiosi. There are too few judges, too poorly equipped, too overworked. Politicians retain control on the ultimate promotion to the headship of the judiciary. The chief prosecutor remains a government puppet, in fact if not in name, and her army of recruits are, to be obsequiously generous and unjustifiably flattering, utterly incompetent.

We know Joseph Muscat is still munching popcorn and Robert Abela has no intention of taking it away from him- Manuel Delia

Journalists are still given the run-around when asking for information. The government still rewards friendly press with cash gifts, starving those who stand in its way. Between One TV and TVM, the TV airwaves are as stifled as they have ever been by Iron Curtain propaganda.

And justice for Daphne remains a theoretical notion.

No one has been charged, let alone convicted, for the years of corruption on Muscat’s watch that we’re supposed to have turned away from. Muscat, Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri, Chris Cardona and others may have been turned into salt but they still walk free, advertising their “expertise” and “services”. They may have moved away from a life of political crime but they shifted to consulting. After all, nobody does it better than Joseph.

At some point the Europeans will stop being impressed by the hollow promises of so-called reform. Abela’s prestidigitations may be spectacular but, like any magic trick, if repeated too many times the audience will see through him, even an audience as hopeful and as optimistic as Europeans who would rather think of Malta as a place to go on holiday or have long breaks from business meetings at  restaurants by the sea.

And the next fall will be harder for the reputation of this country. Under Muscat we disappointed the world by electing a bunch of crooks. The world was keen to forgive us and believed us when we said we would punish the criminals who used Malta to launder their money and who killed Daphne to cover up their crimes. Despite all the harm we caused, our rehabilitation was swift.

They don’t know it but we know. We know it’s all a lie. We know Muscat is still munching popcorn and Abela has no intention, no desire, no capability of taking it away from him.

We know our government wants our institutions to be weak by design so that none of their friends can ever get into trouble for their crimes.

We know they all want us to be permanently chilled by the scorching flames that burned Daphne.

One day they’ll see through us, they’ll see that we lied about making amends.

And then we will not be so readily forgiven.

And then I remembered I didn’t want to write about Muscat because he was a thing of the past.

Until I realised, reading European reports about the state of the country two years after Muscat passed it on to his successor, that Muscat is not a thing of the past at all.

He’s munching popcorn, giggling at the hollow wisdom that crime does not pay.

You think?