This is the story

I dread to think what it's going to be like in five years time, when another election will loom over us. The temperature is still too high for anyone's liking, and the friction and mistrust between the two political parties is growing, not dissipating.

PN leader Simon Busuttil is under immense pressure to show some muscle, but he may be sprinting before the starting pistol has been fired.

He has asked for the Commissioner of Police to resign... when he knows that this will never happen.

In my early days in journalism, I would write editorials asking for everyone to resign.

Later, I only rejoiced when someone resigned after we revealed their missteps.

Busuttil should go slow with his resignation psalm.

It is a little bit early in the day to ask for the Police Commissioner to resign, since there's no watertight proof of any impropriety.

Are we to spend the next five years with a permanent cold war with the Commissioner of Police?

It seems so.

Is Busuttil justified in his criticism?

Actually, he is entirely unjustified. He should ask questions and get answers.

He has every right to lash out at what he sees as inconsistencies, but he must not forget that he, the leader of the opposition, must also have some form of responsibility and not create a sense of mistrust among all the executive.

It is akin to our position with the law courts, which are presently and manifestly against the media and show little or no understanding of the difficulty of writing about corruption and bad practices.

Needless to say, we still abide by the law and respect the judiciary. 

Busuttil should know that over the past few years - and by this I mean the last 40 years - consecutive governments have ignored ethical questions and gone ahead with using government and agencies as they saw fit.

Busuttil has a very deep-rooted problem when he preaches about ethical standards. His party in government ignored good governance and implemented a nepotistic structure.

Has the Labour Party changed this?

The answer to this question is NO - it has not.

Labour has made this worse because of its Taghna lkoll litany. But this does not give the PN the right to speak as if it were the Virgin Mary.

So what one really expects is that Busuttil come up with a blueprint to counter Labour's policies and old PN policies.

If Busuttil is fighting political interference, he has to promote a culture where people in the executive are not chosen by the politicians.

Does he have any idea about how this can be done?

In reality, what we have today is a photocopy of the PN's approach in the late 80s and 90s, and beyond.

The only difference is that, whereas under the Nationalist administration many of the political appointees were tired and in some cases simply recycled, the new appointees are fresh Labour or former PN faces turned Labourites with a lot of energy and some fresh ideas.

In some years time, they will be as ragged and tired as the previous bunch.

Busuttil should insist that certain posts should be enshrined in the Constitution, or else screened and approved by parliamentary commissions.

The commissioner of police and the army chief, among others, are examples where convergence is a requirement. But others need not be 'neutral' bystanders who are only loyal to the Constitution.

There is surely a number of posts that require political appointees, but I am sure that both parties would agree that they should not be changed.

But back to Simon Busuttil and the John Dalli story.

John Rizzo has said under oath that he agreed to charge John Dalli. 

Well, that is not news.

We all knew this.

In fact, if one were to look at the accusation sheet against Silvio Zammit, one will read that the accusation implies very clearly that Silvio Zammit was an accomplice with John Dalli, and Dalli is mentioned by name. The charge also states that he asked and accepted money on his behalf... and all the other crap that one usually associates with a criminal act.

The truth is that Rizzo should have issued a charge on 11 December 2012 - and there was nothing to stop him from doing that - then and after 11 April 2013, when John Dalli arrived in Malta.

The truth is that there is no proof, other than imaginary conjecture, that there was a request for a bribe from John Dalli. If there was one iota of proof, I would be the first one to place John Dalli under the spotlight.

I am that ruthless.

I can say, hand on heart, that I have no guardian angel.

The big question is, why did John Rizzo not charge John Dalli? I guess he had a conscience at the time, because he knew he had no hard evidence in hand - just conjecture tainted by Giovanni Kessler. The conjecture being that both Rizzo and Kessler believed that a telephone conversation they never heard was about a bribe.

Even Inspector Clouseau would be surprised!

Anyone with any sense should have revisited the case.

What is strange is the fact that Gayle Kimberley was never charged by Rizzo. 

And if anyone wants to know the real answer to that, I will be very pleased to explain.

I should remind everyone that Gayle Kimberley, who hails from a well-known and established Maltese family, worked in Castille before 2013. Should I say more?

This is a complicated case. 

Dalli did not help himself with the Bahamas revelations. And if there is one accusation that will stick, it is that he was either careless or simply stupid, or a combination of other suggestions.

There are many who are standing up for Rizzo.

They seem to have forgotten what Rizzo stood for before he was Commissioner. His appointment - which happened when Commissioner Grech was forced to resign in the wake of a MaltaToday news story - was not applauded by all of Fenech Adami's Cabinet, and one declared opponent was John Dalli.

But that is history.

What is not history is the Dalli affair.

There is no doubt in my mind that the timing of the Silvio Zammit charges on 11 December in court coincided with the political turmoil in government. Gonzi had just lost a budget vote.

Rizzo insists that he never talked to Lawrence Gonzi. I guess that means he never talked to anyone close to Gonzi, either.

I'm impressed.

But if you don't mind, I will choose not to believe him. I guess that counts as an offence, right?

I will choose to stop believing that politicians never involve themselves in the executive, then and now.

I have the right to be cynical.