King of misdirection
And just when you thought things couldn’t get more surreal... they do. As he continues falling over himself to avoid annoying magnate Charles Polidano (aka iċ-Ċaqnu), prime minister Joseph Muscat has come up with a novel reason why the law can’t be applied to the infamous Montekristo ‘animal park’.
Even though the park was illegal in the first place, and even though a tiger injured a three-year-old and left him in need of plastic surgery less than a week ago, it cannot be closed down. Not because government is too busy licking the boots of anyone who can throw a euro in its direction – le, ma tarax, to use a colloquialism – and certainly not because the long arm of the law only reaches as far as the plebs, as opposed those who can come in useful.
No, the real reason why an illegal animal park needs to remain open is... wait for it... because otherwise the animals will have to be killed.
Well, slow clap for Dr Muscat, who has shown himself equal to Vanni Pule when it comes to misdirection. Or so he thinks. You can almost see the cogs in his brain turning slowly: let’s mention the animals, get the animal rights activists on board and Ċaqnu’s your uncle.
Does he really think we...