According to Lino Spiteri, Joseph Muscat has grown in stature and continues to do so, but some of his Ministers are not exactly giving him aid and succour in this endeavour.

I’m not fully four-square with Spiteri in his analysis, though in some aspects I agree completely with him. Spiteri is not the oracle he’s perceived by some to be. He said in his column on Monday that Lawrence Gonzi is a possible MEP candidate, apparently not having seen (or believed?) Gonzi’s clear and unequivocal “NO I AM NOT”.

As for the part in connection with which I agree with Spiteri, it’s the bit about some ministers not being exactly the paragons of administrative and political virtue that you’d expect a brand, spanking new Government to hold dear to its heart.

It is mainly of Dr Manwel Mallia that one discourses in this regard.

Now, I’m not about to gainsay his assertion that it wasn’t he who asked, ordered, hinted that they should, earnestly desired or otherwise imposed on the boys in blue to don a bib and tucker and hand out the puddings and pastizzi.

For all I know, the cops concerned actually did volunteer with a big smile on their face, happy to fill in their spare time for a few euro in change, no doubt all above board tax and VAT-wise. The thing is, any politician with a bit of foresight would have said “thanks, but no thanks, boys” the blogosphere being the fertile land that it is for wise-cracks and general hilarity.

And a politician with more of a grasp of how things are perceived would have told his driver to stop at the barrier and walk through the festive throng in Siggiewi, hands being shaken and shoulders clapped all the way, rather than bulldoze his way through in his air-conditioned Beemer, escorted by a hulking great SUV. We’re not talking about Obama in Dar Es Salaam here, it’s Manwel Mallia on the way to Consuelo Herrera, only incidentally a Magistrate who perhaps shouldn’t be hobnobbing with ministers, even if they are no longer ministers responsible for Justice.

Mallia has made other errors of judgment, some enormous (Security Service, any one?) and others less so, and his staff have emulated their master, what with thinking they can order cops about at Isle of MTV and whatever, but perhaps his most serious error was when in the House on Monday he said that while he would perhaps have acted differently before allowing the cops to become waiters, with hindsight, he still thought it was not such a bad thing and it was the media that had blown the thing out of all proportion.

He just doesn’t get it, does he? He, or someone in his direct line of command, makes a pig’s dinner out of something and what does he do? He points his finger at the media for daring to exhibit such an astounding level of lese majeste by failing to fall over itself to adulate him, that’s what he does. Shoot the messenger, I tell you, shoot him now. Or if not shoot the messenger, plaster him all over page one of the Orizzont with a story as old as the hills, pretending to be big news.

The same level of contempt for the press was displayed by Muscat’s other (virtual) Ministerial stalwart, John Dalli. No sooner had this non-elected son of the people been appointed by Joseph Muscat to the position of pretty-much-nearly Minister of Health, perhaps because the actual incumbent was feeling a touch overwhelmed by the job, than he (Dalli) found himself on the front page of the International Herald Tribune, with a story about many, many millions, Africa and the Bahamas, not to mention flights across oceans and meetings on board jets.

Such an exciting life they lead, these denizens of the gilded prisons of Brussels. You can find plenty about the story in other areas of the media and the blogosphere, you don’t need me to add to the wealth of information that exists, but seriously, does John Dalli really think that his answer, incorporating the now familiar whine “this is a conspiracy, and the media is being used to persecute me”, cuts the mustard? Does he really think that the IHT is being used as a tool by GonziPN or Barroso? Seriously?

There are others who are not exactly helping Muscat’s cause, who isn’t helping himself with waivers and exceptions, but these two really take the biscuit.

I imagine that Dr Gonzi, about to hang up his political boots and take a well-deserved rest, secure in the knowledge that when the spin and lies are taken out of the equation, he will be judged firmly on the positive side of history, is smiling a wry smile at the way his successor at the Big Desk is being troubled by his own bunch. Muscat has the advantage of a solid and un-breakable majority, while Gonzi had to contend with the trio of flake, flakier and flakiest while trying to guide the country through storms to the North and South, not to mention East and West, but Muscat now has something of an idea of what Gonzi went through for five whole years.