Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/725667
25 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 2016 Opinion the Muscat administration in all its international energy dealings, and he still announces all the latest developments in the sector as if they were part of his own portfolio (because that, ultimately, is what they still are). Looking back at Brincat's declarations in the European Parliament this week, and I find myself struggling to imagine a more accurate description of the sheer pointlessness of party politics at any level at all. Sift through the individual words, and you are confronted by a veritable choice of nothingness. If you dare to speak your mind and criticise your own party, you will be banished as an outcast, a miscreant, a traitor and a wacko… without actually having any noticeable impact on any given issue. The only other option is to keep your misgivings to yourself and toe the party line… and oh, look. The result is exactly the same. Just look at the impact Brincat's principled stand actually had on the issue. In all honesty, a 'voice in the wilderness' would have achieved more. All of which reinforces my view that Brussels – for whatever unearthly reason – is actually good for local politicians. It does wonders for their perspective on things. Maybe it's the constant drizzle and greyness… or maybe it's the beer - most of which is about 4% stronger than anything we're used to locally. But once they step off that plane, all the accumulated layers of Maltese political bullshit seem to magically come unstuck in one moment… and brief ly, ever so brief ly, we get a rare glimpse of what politicians would actually be like in this country, if their behaviour wasn't so brutally curtailed and controlled by an aggressive party machine. Tonio Borg, for instance, would have been a moderate conservative without a streak of extremism any where in his DNA. Leo Brincat would have been a conscientious dissident, tirelessly pointing out his own party's f laws and shortcomings from within the party's own structures. And presumably, John Dalli would have swept all the prizes at every edition of the annual Malta Transparency and Accountability Awards... Sadly, however, it always proves to be a f leeting illusion. We all subliminally know that only one of those two conf licting personae can possibly be real. And statistically, it is far likelier to be the one who always behaved consistently for years… than the one who suddenly changed tune for the benefit of a new audience, and to match a new political reality. We also know – or should at least strongly suspect by now - that the likeliest scenario by far is that both these assumed identities are equally fake. No 'interdimensional portals' or mid-f light transformations are actually necessary to explain the phenomenon: just a simple acknowledgement that politics in Malta is itself nothing but a huge act… and that even the actors themselves have finally given up the pretence that it isn't.