To be sure and it was a close run thing this week. You almost didn’t get a column to make you splutter over your cornflakes because Richard Cachia Caruana didn’t have time to write my piece, for me to bounce it on to my esteemed editor. To make matters worse, the refurbishment going on in Room 13, to make Castille fit to receive the Young Prince when he is finally exalted and allowed to gambol up its stairs, made it impossible for the Gang of Four to meet, so I got no inspiration.

It is almost beyond comprehension how (Jeffrey) Pullicino Orlando can bring himself to hold this sort of thought...- I.M. Beck

But you know how it is, after so many years of taking instructions and pretending to be my own man, it sort of rubs off on one and I was able to cobble together these few miserable lines. Do excuse me for the poverty of thought and expression, it’s my own hand at work, not that of my controller.

Now, because I know this column is read by Labour’s Lil’ Elves and they don’t do humour or irony all that well, I have to point out, read my lips, chaps, that I am being sarcastic. It is not true that Richard Cachia Caruana tells me what to write, it is not true that he, Daphne Caruana Galizia, Joe Borg, Lou Bondì and I have this cozy little club where we meet to plot the downfall of that Pullicino Orlando fellow or to assasinate other characters as the whim takes Mr Cachia Caruana.

In fact, to say that is a lie, and you know what telling lies makes you, don’t you, kiddies? Yes, that’s right, a liar. I refer you, in this regard, to my blog of a few days ago, which you can find on the online version of this paper. You can easily recognise it, it’s the one where the title is in capitals (annoying, isn’t it?) and where some of the comments below are astounding in their insolence and failiure to grasp the fundamental rules of grammar, logic and syntax, to say nothing of reasonableness.

Enough of that, now.

Did you see that motion that the Pullicino Orlando fellow proposed to the Nationalist Party executive? He wants them to expel Mr Cachia Caruana, basically for three reasons.

According to Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, at the same time that Mr Cachia Caruana was having his police protection discontinued by the Labour government of 1996-98, he was having a jolly little conspiracy with them to feather his nest. And, Lord Luv Us, he has the necessary evidence.

Well, if his evidence is of the same calibre as that on which he bases his statements about me, then I trust he will forgive me if I scoff hollowly and wonder aloud if he hasn’t finally lost it.

The next reason for which Dr Pullicino Orlando indicts Mr Cachia Caruana is that the latter was conspiring with filthy foreigners to bypass Parliament. He didn’t actually put it exactly in that way but, given his views on Turks and his entirely misbegotten perception of the status of Parliament as compared with the other institutions of state, that’s pretty much what he was getting at.

It’s entirely irrelevant to Dr Pullicino Orlando, of course, that the only reason that Labour’s cynically opportunistic motion passed is that he had it in for Mr Cachia Caruana and took great delight in sticking it to him. The fact that it was made crystal clear to anyone without an axe to grind that Mr Cachia Caruana was entirely correct in his dealings on the issue matters not one jot to Dr Pullicino Orlando. He actually wants the PN executive to come to the conclusion that Mr Cachia Caruana acted in some way dishonourably.

To my mind, the third plank of the motion takes the cherry. Dr Pullicino Orlando wants us to believe that he really thinks that the PN executive should blame Mr Cachia Caruana for the unrest that the Prime Minister is being made to endure in the House and in the party.

Let’s analyse this ludicrous position, shall we?

Someone who has continually made the Prime Minister’s life difficult, who has voted against his own party and who, in the somewhat arachaic, if evocative, phrase of days gone by, is giving aid and succour to the enemy and who almost lost the Nationalists the election by his wheeling and dealing, is now seeking to blame someone else for the Prime Minister’s trials and tribulations.

It is almost beyond comprehension how Dr Pullicino Orlando can bring himself to hold this sort of thought without his head exploding. I did write “almost”, of course. Recall that this is someone who, a few years ago, was the object of a campaign by Labour that brought his reputation to such a low ebb that it was a blinking miracle that he bounced back and who is now acting like Labour’s bestest of best buddies.

Frankly, is it any wonder that he finds himself able to propose such a motion?

imbocca@gmail.com

www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20