Precisely what does Joseph Muscat think he's doing?

It's not his pretentious posing behind lecterns I'm talking about, Lord knows we had enough of that during the election campaign, enough to be used to it. Nor is it his constant resort to sound-bites, demonstrating that he thinks that your common or garden citizen will be dazzled by his throwaway gags and not notice unemployment rising, international derision at our prostituted citizenship and the inescapable fact that there ain't gonna be any shiny new power station down South come March, however much Konrad Mizzi screeches "Shame on you, Minister".

No, what I'm talking about is what Muscat thinks he's doing with his Cabinet of so-called Ministers. I refer to them as "so-called" because a Minister is supposed to (ad)minister, hence the name, but this bunch are not doing much of that at all, are they?

I'm inspired directly to this train of thought by that mega up-cock concerning the tent at Mater Dei.

Minister Farrugia, presumably taking advantage of the real Minister for Health being occupied taking his leisure in Bermuda or some other salubrious and warm location, ordered a tent to be pitched and beamed regally from on high, prattling about how his Ministry is being pro-active and dynamic and all that.

His smile lasted for all of a couple of hours until his boss (not Dalli, Muscat) ordered the whole thing taken down. As I write this, it's not immediately clear if Dr Farrugia, apparently not a bad bloke really, intends to resign and return to his true love, the practise, rather than the administration, of medicine.

It's only a tent, Labour's Little Weasels will no doubt screech, but unfortunately, it's more than that, it's symptomatic of the total unfitness for purpose of the members of the Labour Government, from top to bottom.

Seriously, is there one of them who hasn't put his or her pretty little foot into it, with a vengeance?

Dr Manwel Mallia's list of faux pas is never ending, the guy responsible for MEPA has so much to answer for that the environmental NGOs have been struck dumb by the daunting task of listing their beefs (never stopped them before, but that was another era) and Joe Mizzi has reformed the buses, though all he's actually done so far is bring fares down for foreigners, big deal. The constant moaning about Arriva has finished though, which is nice.

The Minister of Finance, Professor, no less, Edward Scicluna, single-handedly turned the European Parliament into a stand-up comedy night. Minister Helena Dalli, at a stroke, made it clear that she thinks that the Industrial Tribunal is nothing more than a cipher, to be messed around with as she pleases. The Minister of Foreign Affairs keeps reminding us that back in the distant, but sadly not dim, days of Labour rule heretofore, our friends were the sort of people in the company of whom you'd rather not be seen.

The guy responsible, if you can use the word responsible to describe Herrera's stewardship, for culture has overseen the fastest slide into mediocrity and parochialism since, well, since Labour were in Government in the Seventies and Eighties. The people for whom he is politically responsible, Albert Marshall and Jason Micallef have distinguished themselves with ill-judged utterances of such crassness that all you can do is bury your face in your hands and hope they'll go away, soon, though in Marshall's case, he'll have to come back before going away.

There have been glimmerings of hope: Owen Bonnici seems to be hell-bent on improving the justice sector, though we're still waiting for the motion of impeachment that he should be drafting for his boss regarding Magistrate Peralta (and if no such motion is presented, Bonnici should consider his position, on the same lines Farrugia has to) The tourism sector, by dint of the fact that Karmenu Vella has had the good sense to let the private sector get on with the job, might actually survive a Labour Government.

But those are single swallows that certainly don't make anything approaching a summer.

This Cabinet of Ministers and Mini-Ministers should be operating at full-tilt, in the wake of the thumping victory they've won, but you tell me, what have, for instance, Louis Grech, Chris Cardona, Roderick Galdes, Franco Mercieca, Twanny Refalo and Zammit Lewis done of note recently?

In one case, quite a few operations, in another, taken part in a Nativity Pageant, in yet another, boasted about three (yes, three) gaming companies setting up shop here and in another, managed, but only so far, to keep the hunters happy.

As for the others, nada, rien, not much at all, which might be a blessing, considering what the ones who have actually done anything have actually done. What a way to run a railroad.