I watched Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando wreathed in smiles, on Bondiplus, listing the graces that would flow from his proposed brand of divorce. He reminded me of the very different creature who shed copious (crocodile) tears on television over his proclaimed non-involvement regarding a proposed rape of Mistra Bay.

He now seeks to convince us to opt for a maintenance-guaranteed divorce, when it is more than plain that such a guarantee can never materialise. In any case, we are all hard put to feel comfortable with guarantees put up by one who had guaranteed his own reputation on his never having heard or known anything of the Mistra development project. Or one who presented himself as a journalist to cover up his Mi(ne)stra doings, luckily aided by a surprisingly wooden opposi­tion leader who chose to walk out of the PBS TV studio at his press con­ference rather than beat the living daylights out of a “tearful” JPO.

At that time his antics nearly cost his party the general election, and now one must add to that the back-stabbing of his leader and colleagues, and short-changing his constituents, by suddenly springing divorce onto all of them, an issue which was never part of any electoral manifesto. This in itself is no good for the proponent of the proposed divorce Bill.

Hopefully, however, our divorce champion will retain his smiles, though it is obvious he is a clearcut case for a political divorce.

This time round the crying is likely to fall to those who might realise too late the extent of deceit embodied in the question on divorce being popped at them for their consideration.