by Rab Bruce’s Spider

In 1964, Malta declared its independence from Great Britain. In the weeks and months running up to that, the UK Press was running articles insisting Malta was too wee and too poor to be a viable independent country. Fortunately for Malta, it had an abundance of natural resources and a host of vibrant local industries. These included, fishing, tourism, farming producing world-renowned foodstuffs, whisky and gin production, oil and gas, enormous renewable energy potential, biomedical research, several top-class universities, shipbuilding, precision engineering, computer games development, publishing, woollens and knitwear, banking and finance and ….

Wait! Hang on a minute. Sorry, Malta has tourism and some manufacturing industries in electronics and pharmaceuticals. That’s about it. I must have got it mixed up with some other pathetic little country which couldn’t possibly survive as an independent nation.

Incidentally, Malta is still doing fine, thanks very much.