And what a week. Ironically, it was a bad week for Labour. It had seemed to be developing into a good week for Labour. Everything backfired.

…the focus of the highly-charged political week shifted from the failings of the government to the failings of the opposition…- Austin Sammut

The Prime Minister, as expected, but not without much trepidation, got his vote of confidence in Parliament. He had no choice but to test the standing of his majority after having lost that majority in the Labour motion of no confidence in Transport Minister Austin Gatt. He rightly challenged his backbench dissidents to show their true colours, which they did.

He also pulled up his Minister for Transport by setting up a task (not “taks”) force to deal with the Arriva saga. An absolutely necessary move. Time will tell whether this move was the right one. This could very well have been a vote of no confidence on his part in Dr Gatt and his arrogant secretariat for there is no doubt that this ministry has always been a factory of arrogance, minister and one head of secretariat after the other.

But the Prime Minister’s was an inevitable move short of accepting the minister’s resignation (which we learnt rather belatedly had been offered some months ago). But there it is. Perhaps Dr Gatt should have resigned and not just offered to. I have no doubt this would have been the case in the UK, for example. But then we do not have a culture of resignation in this country of ours.

I remember two cases of ministerial resignation in past years. One was during the Alfred Sant Administration and I have always felt that the minister concerned should not have resigned. The other related to a Nationalist minister who resigned for purely family reasons and I believe he was right to do so. Otherwise, to my knowledge, nothing.

If we had a culture of resignation, the pre-1987 Labour Cabinet would have been depleted due to ministers being condemned by the courts for breach of human rights, if nothing else. One former minister now presumes himself to be a champion of free broadcasting and expression (endorsed by the Nationalist Party) while another is a senior official of the Labour Party today. So, rightly or wrongly, that’s where we stand.

But back to last week. The government’s serious predicament at the hands of Franco Debono, which predicament did not materialise, was, fortuitously for the government, overshadowed by the performance of Labour deputy leader Anġlu Farrugia on Bondì +, one of the most miserable and pathetic performances we have ever witnessed by any politician, let alone a deputy leader.

It was also overshadowed by the poor and amateurish press conference addressed by the shadow minister for finance (no less), Karmenu Vella.

The deputy leader was totally unprepared while the shadow minister of such an important portfolio had no crucial information to give us. Accordingly, the focus of the highly-charged political week shifted from the failings of the government to the failings of the opposition, and that was the end of the anticipated circus.

I had the opportunity on that famous day of the confidence vote in Parliament to appear on One TV for a discussion programme, which I have participated in on occasions before. I found before me two Labour stalwarts, thus putting me into a seriously outnumbered position, which, unfortunately, was hardly remedied by the performance of the moderator (how’s that for balance in broadcasting?). But I have always liked a challenge.

The Labour stalwart is a lawyer of substance in his criminal trial practice. A man who has proved his worth in his professional field, with perfect gift of the gab and matching kid gloves and who has suddenly offered his allegiance to the PL stable like a bolted horse. Not much to say about him.

The other was a damsel, well practised (and well oiled she was too) in matters relating to social housing, who has also moved house (excuse the pun), with near perfect blonde hair and well rehearsed blinking (or perhaps twinkling?) eyes. Further, the Sliema (I presume) girl needs to brush up her Maltese accent drastically. I have something to say about her.

The most remarkable thing I noted was that she seemed to have a tape recorder in the depths of her throat, which contained parrot-like pronunciations from the prophet Joseph (was there one after all?).

Perhaps she actually wrote his speech for the confidence vote debate in Parliament. I suppose that’s her job and her mission now. Besides exalting young “Joseph” for whom she seems to have a passion and repeating her master’s new but already worn out catch phrase Il-partit tal-Prim Ministru (the Prime Minister’s party), she just clutched onto the word surreali (surreal). Lo and behold, it was the headline of this newspaper as attributed to “Joseph” the following morning.

And this brings me to pose the question: What do the “great unwashed” (apologies and acknowledgments to colleague I.M. Beck but this is an irresistible expression to use at the moment) know about “surreal”, not even recognising the word let alone its meaning. That’s speech writing, quality PR and “Joseph“ image building for you (what with the Maltese and all)

So that was the week that was!