It might not be this evening after all but, bar the shouting and quorum calls permitting, the Passports for Bucks Bill will become law soon and the sun will set on an era at the end which I, for one, have seen my pride in my country, which rose to such heights after Mintoff and his minions were taken out of the equation, plummet back almost to the same depth.

In fact, it might even be that on reflection, we will come to the conclusion that our national identity has been pimped even more blatantly than it was in the Seventies and Eighties.

Mintoff, at least, had the decency to put us in hock to sovereign, if rogue, states. This bunch have gone the extra mile and are offering to flog a passport just like mine, to individuals whose name we will not know, whose past is buried under seven times seven veils and who need not, indeed probably will not, ever set foot in the country. How many rogues will be in this flock is lost in the smoke and mirrors surrounding the scheme.

It's not as if the whole thing is lit with dazzling and purifying light: Henley & Partners will be Malta's sole agents, they will vet the applicants, fast-tracking their applications if the price is paid and making (quite rightly) oodles of bucks while they're at it. Our Labour government will be getting its cut and everyone will be happy ever after.

From what I can make out, Henley aren't exactly being over-informative about the enduring value of the passport that they will be couriering to their clients. The fact that the Opposition, which may be in government in just over four years, has said that the passports will be turned into useless bits of paper doesn't appear to form part of the sales-pitch on which Henley are relying, because they in their turn appear to be attributing omniscient qualities to the legal advice the government has, ignoring the fact that there are significantly weighty opinions on the other side of the divide.

As is the norm in the commercial world, the important thing is to rake in the euros, and it's hardly surprising that Henley are not falling over themselves to shine a glaring spotlight on the legal niceties, given that their client, the Government of the Republic of Malta, is so eager to cash in on our citizenship. Who cares that one of the major attractions of our passport, the fact that eases passage into the U.S.A. is being diluted, perhaps to the point of non-existence, by the simple fact that said passport has become a commercial commodity?

The thing is, we won't even know how much the government will be making, because while its own estimates are touting the figure of fifteen million, Henley's head honcho is talking about way more than that and the bigger the figure gets, the bigger the temptation, so I won't be holding my breath waiting for Henley's Compliance Department to get any awards for rigorousness and probity.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the country - the phrase uses "the party" but perhaps we can change it for once.