Any parent out there knows that it is a natural reaction to persistent questioning, generally from toddlers who have discovered the power of speech, to resort to the refrain in my title. In that context, it is an understandable, if not particularly excellent, response.
In the context of issues of significant political importance, however, the response is not "parental" but, in reality, childish in the extreme. When the PM imparts from on high his dictum that a particular issue is closed, he is inviting the response "no, it will be closed when we say it is closed, you're not the boss of us, even if you think you are".
In a similar vein, when it is reported that "In a reaction, the Labour Party said that Dr Busuttil was being negative and trying to scare the people", it is becoming increasingly difficult to stifle a jaw-breaking yawn.
This mantra, while handy for Joseph Muscat and his minions, is simply proving, if proof were needed, that the Government does not have answers to give and by tacking this slogan onto every response given, they are simply strengthening the evidence. When they add the other favourite, "you should see what used to happen in your time", to the mix, they're demonstrating a paucity of argument that is staggering in its shallowness.
The Minister of Finance, renowned academic that he is, let slip that he finds Ministerial salaries to be shameful. In so doing, he drove a stake right into the heart of his own party's war-horse, the one that was galloping about before the elections, the hue and cry that was set up about Ministerial salaries. Never has it been so eloquently demonstrated that when Labour were screeching in "shock, horror", they were doing so in the true spirit of political opportunism of enormously cynical proportions.
On the subject of digging your own midden, shouldn't a man of Mr John Dalli's perceived intellectual acumen adopt circumspection rather than belligerence as his preferred demeanour? His actions over the past twelve months have led to such an avalanche of speculation world-wide that for him to accuse the Leader of the Opposition of trying to turn him into a political football is to devalue the perception of him that many used to have.
Does Mr Dalli really expect us to ignore his flying philanthropic visit half-way across the world when he was supposed to be at dinner in Cyprus, so fast that he almost met himself on the way back?
Are we to believe that his boss while he was a European Commissioner was doing the bidding of occult forces in Malta, rather than acting as the head of a somewhat important institution?
Are we supposed to accept without question that his happy, some might say miraculous, recovery from the malady that prevented him from travelling to Malta before the elections came only coincidentally so close in time to the replacement of the Commissioner of Police soon after the elections?
Do we really think that he came to Malta knowing that he was risking arraignment because, technically, Mr John Rizzo was still Commissioner when Dalli fetched up on our shores?
And, finally, in the context of his assertion that he was always loyal to the PN, are we to ignore Dalli's persistent appearances on SuperOne TV, the very same SuperOne that had taken such exquisite pleasure in attributing every manner of nastiness to him in the not-so-distant past?
I don't think so.