It is holiday time for MPs, but even that does not stop them from bickering... about the holidays.

Parliament’s first summer recess under the Labour government, of 74 days, is not much shorter than last year’s 82 – when Joseph Muscat, in a headline-making tweet, had interpreted the longer-than-usual break as a sign of the Nationalist government’s internal crisis.

“What goes around comes around,” Opposition Whip David Agius said yesterday, saying it showed how hollow the Labour leader’s criticism was at the time.

With this recess almost as long as the last, he said, it was legitimate to ponder whether Labour was prepared to govern.

“Last year all hell broke loose with Muscat tweeting that the summer recess was confirmation of a crisis. I hope he doesn’t say the same now that the recess is almost the same length.”

Using the same arguments brought by the then Labour opposition, he said, it seemed there were no Bills in the pipeline and the Government had to take a long break from Parliament so that it could put its house in order.

Unsurprisingly, the Government Whip, Carmelo Abela, had a different interpretation.

“Last year’s recess was two weeks longer and our criticism at the time was justified as the government’s majority was falling to pieces,” he argued.

“This year, after a long electoral campaign and the fact that we started meeting in Parliament just a month after the elections, the long summer recess is justified.”

Mr Abela added that although there was currently only one Bill pending on Parliament’s agenda, many more were in the pipeline.

MPs’ summer holidays