That would have been the best headline to catch the essence of what Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, said last Sunday in reply to questions over the revelations that there will be musical chairs in Brussels as Richard Cachia Caruana is reportedly set to take over as Malta’s EU Commissioner and Simon Busuttil gets re-elected as an MEP but then steps down to replace RCC as Malta’s Permanent Representative to the EU.

The Prime Minister’s answer and the way he said it has been described as smacking of arrogance and reminiscent of Louis XVI’s “L’ etat c’est moi!”

This might be the case if one takes what Dr Gonzi said literally.

I want to propose, however, that Dr Gonzi was neither addressing the journalists who asked him the question nor the Labour Party.

Given what has gone on within the Nationalist Party over the last few weeks, especially within the PN’s Parliamentary Group, it is more than plausible to surmise that Dr Gonzi was actually telling his own MPs and his own party who calls the shots.

It all began, of course, with Dr Gonzi’s decision to single-handedly nominate George Ablea as the next President of Malta. Something to which Labour Leader, Dr Joseph Muscat, agreed to in principle, but only signed up to after obtaining a virtually unanimous endorsement from Labour’s Parliamentary Group.

This incensed the PN’s MPs even more and we had clear and on the record declarations of disagreement about the way Dr Gonzi handled the matter from MPs as diverse as Simon Busuttil and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. We are told that they were not the only ones but that others kept their disagreements within the bosom of the PN’s Parliamentary Group. No wonder then that the PN whip, David Agius, even wrote on the record to the effect that in future such decisions will be taken after a proper consultation process.

The grapevine says that this tension has not abated and that Labour’s motion on the PN Government’s proposed plan to dig up St John’s Square in order to construct an underground museum to house the Co-Cathedral’s treasures has hit another raw nerve. This, again, is another issue about which there are quite well known and well publicised divergences within PN’s Parliamentary Group. It is said that, once more, Dr Gonzi has had to make clear in private within the Parliamentary Group that there can be no room for dissent.

Apparently, that was not enough and hence Dr Gonzi’s outburst last Sunday. It is clear that there were mischief makers who leaked the plan to shift Richard Cachia Caruana and Simon Busuttil around in order to embarrass the Prime Minister. This was the ultimate straw which broke Dr Gonzi’s patience with his own MPs. Hence he felt he had to remind them who is running the show. “I am the Prime Minister. I am the Government,” means two things.

Firstly, “Don’t forget who single-handedly won you the general election last March!”. For which read, “It was I who won it for you - me and only me – GonziPN!”

Secondly, and following on from the first clear interpretation of what Dr Gonzi said on Sunday, what Dr Gonzi was telling his MPs and his party was very clear and very unequivocal. Not only, “Don’t forget who won you the last election!” but also, because of that, “Don’t forget – I’m the boss!”