The sad thing about Franco Debono's position is that he actually has a couple of very good points to make, with which I suspect not only us criminal law apostates agree but also quite a few people from the Minister responsible and up and down.

I wouldn't presume to discuss the particular merits or demerits of any single issue or group of issues, as my knowledge of this area of the law is less than vast, to put it mildly, but what I do know is that it is an area of the law that affects the individual pretty directly (there's an understatement) so we need to monkey around with it carefully, especially since any swing in the direction of fuller protection of suspected criminals will affect society itself, and provoke a reaction from – ironically – the very people who are so gleefully watching Debono annoy his PM and his Party.

This is because, as is well known, the further Left you pretend to be, the further Right you actually are, as the thought-control freakery of so many men of the Left over the ages so starkly portrays.

But the sadness about Debono does not emanate from this aspect of his case but from the way he's going about turning himself into a political sideshow whose relevance will disappear into thin air the moment the PM exercises his prerogative. The longer this takes, to boot, the more Debono will continue defying the old adage about stopping that digging thing when you're in a hole.

Debono is in a hole and no mistake: by behaving like a petulant three-year old instead of a mature, thinking, politician, by wanting it all now if not sooner, by acting like an attention-seeking malcontent instead of contributing to a very important debate in a statesmanlike manner (a bit of a pompous way of putting it, but you'll see what I mean) Debono has taken the focus completely off the message and planted it straight onto the messenger, to wit himself.

If he thinks that this is doing him any political good, in the country or in his constituency, he'd better think again, and deeply. Voters are fickle beasts, and just as Pullicino Orlando has taken in the aroma of roses-turned-thorns and bowed out, so might Debono have to, when it dawns on him that your common or garden voter, whose failure to grasp the big picture with all its nuances is renowned, will swing towards perceived loyalty as opposed to perceived disloyalty.

Whether or not Debono is loyal doesn't enter into it: it's what the voter thinks he or she sees that is important.

And if Debono thinks that the messages he gets on his Facebook page are an indicator of wide-spread admiration and encouragement, here again he'd better think again: it's incredibly easy for people whose agenda includes (to the exclusion of all else) getting Labour into power to put up a few posts.

Debono has an opportunity, now, during the season of reflection and good will to all men: if he spurns it, he's looking at political oblivion, my instincts tell me.