I bow to no man in my earnest desire to ensure that the Revenue is prevented from getting its sticky fingers on the citizenry's hard-earned spondoolicks (which is not how you spell it).

This is a matter of selfish principle, demonstrating that I am governed by the heart and not the head because, when I stop to think about it, it is clear that if the Revenue were prevented from appropriating to itself sufficient millions of euros we wouldn't have roads to drive on (what do you mean, we don't?), schools to educate our offspring and hospitals to queue in.

But the fact remains that I'm as reluctant as the next man to part with cash voluntarily, even if I'm feeding it into the commonweal. And if there's any chance of getting any of it back, I'm likely to be found at the head of the line, doing an Oliver Twist with the best of them.

So on this basis, the Labour Party's championing of the cause of reversing the VAT charged on aspects of the car registration tax is to be saluted with approval.

However, that's as far as it goes. The many thousands who signed up for the initiative are indicative, as I've had occasion to point out, that turkeys don't vote for Christmas, nothing more and nothing less. There have been people, I'm told, who didn't line up at the Crystal Palace because they didn't want to be associated with Labour in anything at all - more fool them, I say, because if the case goes against the government, it would be their loss and no one else's.

Actually, it will be our loss, all of us, because if the government eventually has to fork out the dosh, it's our dosh that's going to be forked out and, knowing the Revenue, it will be a question of robbing Peter, then robbing Robert, then robbing Shirley, to pay Paul.

What is going to be moderately amusing, for those of us who have an idea how these things work, is watching the people who are going to have to run with the cases actually get the show on the road.

Given that the concept of a "class-action" is alien to Maltese law, are the legal beagles who have been entrusted with this holy task going to have to sit there and sign their name to 17,000-odd applications, lists of witnesses and lists of documents?

That's three signatures per case needed, folks, and I'll let you work out the math, since I've had a rather spending dinner at which wine was ingested and I'm not about to do it for you.

Or are there going to be 16,999-odd judicial intimations filed (they only need one signature) and one actual case so that time-barring is rendered ineffectual and the decision in the single case that is taken to term applied to the rest?

Far be it from me to second-guess the "star legal team" (their words, I'm not being sarcastic - I know them and they are good) Labour has assembled and I'm sure they'll find a way to do it but the fact remains that all these cases, however they're filed or parked, are going to cost money to file and resources applied to the logistics.

And for all the political posturing and pronouncing, it seems to be a far from a foregone conclusion that the good guys (assuming the Revenue are the bad guys) are going to win, which means that someone is going to have to pay the costs - and, presumably, since the Labour Party isn't exactly flush (no denigration of them meant, none of the parties are) each single plaintiff is going to have to stick his or her hands into her pocket. And, in any case, it's into our pockets that hands are going to be stuck - see above for the reasoning as to why this is the case. You have to be pretty dim to imagine that if you get a refund you're not going to have to pay it back somehow - or that if you're not, someone else is, though, working on the "Jack Principle", why should anyone who doesn't pay much tax worry?

Still, it makes for good politics, I suppose, and since there's an election coming up, it's going to be a horse that's flogged all the way up to June and no mistake.

Moving on to the fish and chips element of my weekly effort to amuse, edify and educate (pompous oaf) we re-discovered the Emperor of India last week and a joyous re-acquaintance it was too. Really very, very good and the fact that the son and heir paid made it even better.

Spezzo, in Valletta, was where I had dinner just before writing this (all errors are my fault, to be blamed on the fact that I perhaps imbibed a touch too much of the juice of the vine) and if you go there, do try the tagliata.

Then stand and applaud.

imbocca@gmail.com www.timesofmalta.com/blogs