The title requires no explanation in its literal sense. Children should not be trusted with the power to start a fire. There is an innate fascination with holding any form of power in your hands, however mature, competent and responsible one may be. It is the harnessing and proper channelling of that power which gives us the measure of the person.

Maybe he [Joseph Muscat] is nostalgic for the type of stand-alone, defiant politics as epitomised by Dom Mintoff holding up the 1973 CSCE meeting in Helsinki

Such power is vested in heads of government of the EU, through the possibility to use the veto on certain decisions taken collectively at Council level.

Notwithstanding them having the power of this particular match in their hands, they know full well that it is not there to be played with irresponsibly, or brandished threateningly every time whims and wishes are not satisfied.

That is the game that Joseph Muscat has chosen to play with the other heads of government of the EU. He is promising, or rather threatening, to use the veto he holds to block any issue he feels like, if he does not get exactly his own way on matters like immigration.

Granted, solidarity from our fellow member states has not been excessively forthcoming in real terms, but, notwithstanding this, indiscriminate use of the veto on random issues smacks highly of political blackmail.

Maybe he is nostalgic for the type of stand-alone, defiant politics as epitomised by Dom Mintoff holding up the 1973 CSCE meeting in Helsinki, an action which still today, tarnishes our image in global circles.

Politics, especially on the international stage, is often described as being the art of compromise. With compromise, everybody wins to some extent or another.

A solution is found, using the logical, reasoned and democratic approach, which is the ideal way forward and has the highest level of universal acceptability.

Give and take is the order of the day, and childish foot-stamping is frowned upon and bound to have negative consequences in the long term.

The most worrying aspect of this is not just the throw-back to the Mintoffian way of doing things. This anachronistic behaviour also exposes the underlying attitude Muscat still harbours from his Made in Brussels days.

All things EU are still perceived by him as being the other side of the frontie, and this is amply proven by his ‘veto’ pronouncements, as well as by certain actions which cannot be seen as any other than deliberate provocation and challenges against our partners within the European institutions.

We cannot belong to, and form part of an EU which we still consider, nine years down the road, as being something undesirable.

Ultra-populist and pseudo-patriotic rhetoric serve no purpose other than to fan the flames of prejudice, and an inflated sense of self-importance among those of his loyal followers who tend to confuse the directional arrow of Labour’s wind vane with that of the magnetic compass, which unwaveringly points the way in a consistent and unwavering way.

In these infant stages of Malta’s time under Muscat’s government, it did not take much longer than 100 days for the true nature of his style of politicking to show up from under Joseph’s Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (with apologies to Andrew Lloyd Webber), presented with such flair and fanfare in the run up to the elections last March.

The list of holes appearing in the overcoat is growing at a daily and alarming rate – political appointments galore, transfers, policemen acting as waiters and cooks, rewards for services rendered, environmental (in)-considerations, just to name a few.

This is all just a foretaste of what is yet to come. The Government is still riding on the fruits of the politics and vision of the previous administration.

It is when the fruits being sown now come to harvest that the true worth of Muscat’s way of doing things can be properly assessed and valued. From what we have seen so far, if this is the stuff his dreams are made of, one dreads the nightmares, and looks forward to the morning.

John Bonello is a member of the Commission for the Reform of Nationalist Party Structures and Statutes.