MPs and ministers, providing they turn up and do their duty, should receive a decent salary. A referendum on divorce should only take place – quite aside from whether one agrees with deciding the issue in this manner or not – after a comprehensive, calm and open debate by civil society.

Yet neither of these two things seems likely to happen in the near future. Not because there is something intrinsically wrong with proceeding in this manner, quite the contrary, but because the two issues have been mishandled by the government/Nationalist Party and because they both became needlessly party political.

The PN was presented with an opportunity when it discussed its divorce resolution eight days ago. It was within its rights to take an official stand against divorce and, even, to rally internally to vote down Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s Private Member’s Bill.

The mistake it made, which many outside the party saw coming, was to link a final decision on divorce to this parliamentary vote – particularly when the Prime Minister himself had proposed and promised that this issue would be decided by the ­people.

It may have gone down this road because of the acrimony that has developed between certain MPs within the party. But whatever the reason, the PN’s approach played straight into the hands of Joseph Muscat, who must have been grateful after last summer losing the initiative on an issue he had unsuccessfully attempted to put on the agenda when he became Labour leader.

Casting a once firm stand against a referendum aside, Dr Muscat seized his chance with the opportunist zeal of a shameless goal-poacher. And he has enjoyed considerable success in the past week in beating the Nationalist Party with its own stick, as well as attempting to dictate an issue that was well and truly in the hands of the government.

Whether the Labour leader will be successful in leading the way remains to be seen. He won the ‘referendum resolution’ battle quite quickly, and thinks he has enough in his armoury – with the help of at least one Nationalist MP who holds the balance of power in Parliament – to win the ‘referendum question’ war.

Yet this is a dangerous game for everyone. The government will be dealt a body blow if it loses a parliamentary vote; Dr Pullicino Orlando is likely to be viewed as the enemy by a number of Nationalists if he causes this; and both he and Dr Muscat will be in a quandary if a subsequent referendum vote says ‘no’ to divorce.

All this, of course, is of absolutely no help to the people who are to determine the issue. What would be helpful is if the question put to them is not loaded in a way that could be perceived to favour the anti- or pro-divorce campaigns.

A straight ‘do you agree with the introduction of divorce’ is seen in one light, while the Irish question which actually went into the nitty-gritty of what type of divorce people were voting upon (after four years of separation, etc, etc) may be seen in another.

There must be a middle way, and it is, perhaps, worth bearing in mind that the question posed for the EU referendum in 2003 was generic when, with a five-seat majority in Parliament, the government of the day could easily have embellished it with tantalising detail.

However, at this stage we should be asking ourselves whether we are ready to take this decision now. While there should undoubtedly be a formal commitment to resolve the issue together with a timeline, April, May or anytime in the next few months is probably too soon in the circumstances we have unfortunately found ourselves in.