What perfect timing for the Nationalist Party: just as they (somewhat cravenly) came out in favour of a little hunting, we have a shooting incident which doesn't help the hunters' image in the slightest.

Yes, fine, OK, I know, there's no evidence, at least as of six pm on Thursday when I'm writing this, that a hunter took a pot-shot at an ornithologist, and all the usual apologists are up in arms screeching "why blame the hunters" but, hey, perception is king and you can see what the public's perception is.

If you can't, I invite you to look at the comments section online, though this is a pastime that I would normally be very wary of recommending.

So, the perception is that some malevolent being who shoots at birds for fun did the same thing at a car in which there was a human being. Whether or not this is the case will - perhaps - some day become fact, but in the meantime, the news travels along with the other news about the eighty-odd stuffed birds regarding which someone has had his collar felt to give the hunting fraternity a bad press day.

There was other news about hunting: Lino Farrugia has been made Chief Executive Officer of the Federation of Oxymoronic Hunters and Bird Trappers - sorry, delete "Oxymoronic" and insert "Conservationist", if you can do that without rolling about laughing.

It behoves the PN to stop and smell the coffee: appeasement didn't work before the elections and there's no reason why it should work now. They tried it with that Debono fellow, they tried it with that Pullicino Orlando bloke, they tried with everyone every which way from Sunday, abandoning the high moral ground with a vengeance.

At the time, you couldn't really blame them: the alternative, in some scenarios, would have been to let Labour in even earlier and on the evidence of the past six months, there's much to be said for keeping them out as long as possible being a good thing.

But there's no excuse now: making nice to hunters is as appealing to many of us as agreeing with push-back. Just as the PN took a stand and grew a backbone then, it should do so now, about hunting.

It should do so about other things, too, for that matter, but for now, hunting would be fine.