There is a phrase in Maltese, Wiċċek qisu l-għatba tal-qorti, which implies that the addressee is less than prone to embarrassment. There’s a similar one which draws attention to the similarity between one’s face and one’s nether regions.

Both can be applied to Dr the Hon. Minister Owen Bonnici, who seemsto have something of an asbestos-lined face, impervious to even the mostblush-inducing, cringe-making effects of the words that issue forth from his angelic mouth.

He had the brass neck, the sheer gall, to say that he takes the PN, after making proposals for reforms in the manner of appointments to the judiciary, with a pinch of salt, because they failed to do anything about the matter when they were in government and didn’t have the proposals in their electoral manifesto.

Insofar as concerns the latter, I invite the Hon. Minister to stick it into his pipe and set light to it: we didn’t spot anything in Labour’s manifesto about selling passports, accommodating assorted Gaffarenas and Premier Cafe’ owners, desecrating the environment, giving away enormous tracts of prime land, giving jobs to convicted criminals and - well, need I go on?

Insofar as concerns the fact that the Nationalists failed to do anything about judicial appointments while they were in government, well, the fact is that the Nationalists’ appointments didn’t create the needless (and continuing) controversy that Bonnici’s breaches of the Constitution have created.

That said, it is time for change, and no mistake, a change that was materially prevented from happening, when the PN were in government, by the MLP’s attitude, an attitude that historically rendered the Commission for the Administration of Justice a damp squib, because there was never, ever, going to be a situation where the House would muster the two-thirds necessary to censure a member of the judiciary, not even when it was richly deserved.

That the Industrial Tribunal was ripe for change is a fact that has been accepted by practitioners right across the spectrum

But are we going to get any real change? Given the way Bonnici is sneering at the PN’s proposals, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting, especially if Premier Joseph insists on crowbarring that Debono person into the mix.

This owner of a massive ego, and little else, has to be seen as unacceptable as a facilitator of change by the Nationalists, so any initiative involving him is anon-starter. And that’s apart from the fact that Debono seems hell-bent on promoting his own brand of reform and nothing else.

And then we have Bonnici’s continued insistence that he knows best and that he can ignore the wise counsel of, among others, Judge Giovanni Bonello, the Dean of the Faculty of Law and the President of the Chamber of Advocates (three different people, in case you were wondering). That he can, and should, ignore that Debono person is clear, but to sail on regardless in the face of others’ warnings is folly.

Bonnici’s brash insouciance when it comes to saying things that are “convenient” - at least in the short term - is matched by the government as a whole, which obviously takes its lead from Premier Joseph.

• On Friday before last, the Constitutional Court confirmed two judgements of the lower court that had found that the Industrial Tribunal as constituted under the 2002 Employment & Industrial Relations Act is not an independent judicial body as required under the Constitution.

The government, mainly in the form of Minister Helena Dalli, was caught napping, although the now-confirmed judgements had been handed down over six months ago and, as usual with this bunch of clowns, they went into defensive mode, saying that it was a PN law that had been declared unconstitutional.

My only reaction is to point out that they’re a bunch of lying clowns.

The 2002 Act, to the extent that the Industrial Tribunal is concerned, is essentially a carbon-copy of the 1976 Industrial Relations Act, which the folklore has it was written by Jack Calamatta and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, big beasts of the MLP/General Workers’ Union tandem in government at the time.

Changes to the 1976 law were not made in 2002 due mainly to opposition by - you guessed it - the GWU, the very same union that in 2008 felt it incumbent on it to go on the offensive against the Industrial Tribunal.

That the Industrial Tribunal was ripe for change is a fact that has been accepted by practitioners right across the spectrum, but it’s only under La Dalli’s watch that this has come into sharp and unforgiving focus. Maybe she should have concentrated less on empty but trendy posturing and more on trying to fix something that needed fixing.

Premier Joseph has kept his distance from this, sensibly enough, but he can’t say he isn’t giving his minions the example on the basis of which they should conduct themselves.

• The two main news portals, this newspaper’s and The Malta Independent, made mention last Tuesday of two ‘direct orders’ given by the Office of the Prime Minister (who was Lawrence Gonzi at the time) to a company on whose board one of Gonzi’s sons sits. The amount first reported was of €50 million and €265, subsequently corrected to read €50 and €265.

Yes, folks, you are reading this correctly: Premier Joseph Muscat, whose own Office has sanctioned the Cafe’ Premier deal and is responsible for the Land (Gaffarenas) Department, thought it necessary to get to his hind legs in the House and report breathlessly that no less than two direct orders, shock horror, to the total, awesome as it is, of €295 had been given to a company somehow, even if tenuously to the extreme, connected to his predecessor.

Honestly, does Premier Muscat really think we’re so completely stupid, so below contempt?

He’s lucky no one in either newsroom concerned was in a whimsical mood, because the report could have read completely differently. For instance, it could have been reported that the Speaker had failed to take the appropriate steps against Premier Muscat for his blatant breach of his privilege to say what he likes in the House.

Or it could have been reported that the National Audit Office was investigating Premier Muscat’s misuse of public funds by wasting much more than €295 to find evidence of €295 expenditure.

Is it any surprise that with this sort of example, Premier Muscat’s minions don’t feel the slightest compunction in spewing outrageous garbage, if not worse? Not surprising at all, given that he employs people like Cyrus Engerer and Glenn Bedingfield.

While on the subject of weird statements, where does that bloke Mizzi, the one responsible for the buses, not the other one, who is responsible for everything else including the Labour Party, get off saying that things are getting better? He’s been the man in charge (yeah, right) for longer now than his predecessor was, and the subsidy under his guidance has exploded, and for him to say that things are getting better really does invite the retort “pull the other one, Joe, it’s got bells on”.

And so to the end bit, with a nod in the direction of two old favourites, Fresco on the Sliema Front and Maldonado in Rabat, newly expanded and more pleasing on the eye. In both places, good food is available and in relaxed mode, too.