A few blogs ago, I floated the idea that the Nationalist Party should embrace its Young Turks and turn them into the Republic's Loyal Opposition, because the ones who are supposed to be doing this job just aren't. To be fair, the Young Turks' loyalty, for all Labour's whistling in the dark, is no longer in question and GonziPN is set fair for quite a few more months of trying to avoid the shoals of the international situation, which is pretty lucky for us, because if the other bunch get their hands on the tiller, it will be time to head for the hills, if you'll forgive the topographical blooper.

Why do I say this? You mean, apart from Deputy Leader Anglu Farrugia's failure to convince even the cat that he is Cabinet material? Or Karmenu Vella's somewhat "long past sell-by date" attributes? Or the fact that Labour's MPs seem more intent on playing with their smartphones in the House than listening to the debate? In connection with this, incidentally, what price Parliament being the highest institution in the land now, as their Whip constantly barks?

If you look at the media reports about the Budget, with Tony Zarb's facile " 1/10", you can see it plain as day: Labour and its weasels had their prepared gripes and whines, but the rest of us got it.

And what we got is that Labour are simply not fit to govern because they have no policies and they have no plans.

At eighteen-odd months from the elections, you'd think they were raring to go. Well, they are, but that's as far as it gets, because at the first Cabinet meeting, they're going to look a lot like that dog that runs after cars, without having a plan as to what to do if it actually catches one.

You want more evidence? OK, here you are. For the Leader of the Opposition, the Budget ignored important problems. The problems which were ignored, he said, included the €80m growth in government debt and the water and electricity bills.

That was it: eighty paltry million and those flipping water and electricity bills, the ones he knows how to reduce, because Citizen John Dalli told him/didn't tell him.

Precisely how – or the extent to which – the bills are going to go down, Joseph Muscat is keeping to himself, leading to the inescapable conclusion that either he doesn't really know what he's going to do, or he does and he's not telling and doesn't care about "families" suffering. I tend towards the first alternative, because the second one is too cynical even for an ex-Super One hack.