I've no idea if it is still up or whether the law has taken its course. I'm not sure to which law I'm referring here, whether it's the law of common decency or the law of the land - to my mind, both should prevail on Mr Angelo Xuereb, and he should be called to order for allowing his face to appear on a billboard which heralds AzzNazz's promise to close a refugee centre if - admittedly by some really enormous miracle - they get their sticky fingers on some power.

It has been obvious from day one that, the AzzNazz are simply gasping for some sniff at the scraps that fall from the table of power, but this barefaced snatch at enticing the votes of certain elements is, not to put too fine a point on it, disgusting.

And for the benefit of those whose intellectual capacities don't stretch to understanding English, that means that the rest of us don't consider you as being fit to be in the same room as us.

What's going to be next, a promise of a coalition with Norman Lowell, with a pledge to set up an electrified fence around the country, programmed to fry anyone who is not an Aryan Son of Commerce?

The whole lot of them should hide their heads in shame and slink back under whatever rock they've crawled out from under.

Once, twice.

The MLP camp has been trumpeting the fact that the PN has come off badly in the last four or whatever it is electoral contests. Like a bitch elephant with bad bunions, the noise being created by them has been almost incredible. You can understand their train of thought, of course - Lawrence Gonzi is on a losing streak and the only way for them is up.

Yes, well, that's as may be and all that, but what the MLsPinners are neglecting to remember is that in none of these so-called defeats, not a single itty-bitty one, was Alfred Sant participating. Yes, fine, you'll tell me he was the party leader, so it's all credit to him that the MLP got on so well (let's, for the sake of argument, say they got on so well) and that's true, as far as it goes.

But in the reality of political life, it only goes so far and no further. Because, the thing is, Alfred Sant lost the three contests that were really relevant.

First he lost the 1998 election (I'm not counting the fact that he also lost the government because of a blinking yacht marina) when the people who thought it would be a nifty idea to give the nasty, arrogant Nationalists a fright in 1996 came to their senses. Actually, I'm not ever going to be swayed in my opinion, nay moral conviction, that if a general election had been held a mere 33 days after Dr Sant was sworn in, he'd have been booted right out again, such were the long faces I spotted on a number of people who had been shooting their mouths off about how it was time the Nats got their come-uppance. Then the dear fellow went and lost the EU referendum, despite painting pretty pictures for all and sundry about how we'd all be wearing lederhosen and yodelling away to our hearts' content, presumably in tune with the cuckoos. To be fair, he'd said at the time, and still seems to believe, that the "no" votes won - but that's because the dead voted. Oh well, I suppose that's some consolation to him now, there are more dead since the referendum, so that's more votes to count for Labour.

So that's two down, one to go, the last one, making Dr Sant once, twice, three times a loser, being the 2002 plebiscite (nice word, that, comes from plebs) when with a gross miscalculation of the national mood he kept on saying that Malta's place was out of Europe, which was moderately strange considering that the majority of us had just voted to join.

So there you have it, in a nutshell: when the chips are down and the mushrooms sliced, when Dr Sant is busy contemplating the notion that he might come out on top after the cookies are crumbled, something inexplicably goes wrong. Inexplicable to him and his cronies, of course; plenty of people within the MLP know precisely the provenance of the proverbial prick to their bubble of optimism.

Will it all happen again, making it a four-in-a-row feat? That's in the future which I don't presume to predict, preferring to prevent preventive accusations that I'm trying to influence the democratic process. Well, not much, anyway.

And while on the subject

And while on the subject of Dr Sant, what is it about this man? Everyone and his brother is telling him that, no, sorry, you can't renegotiate the Treaty of Accession, however much you stamp your little foot and threaten to thkweam and thkweam.

I suppose if it comes to a choice between telling the plebs what they want to hear and telling the voters what the facts are, spinning to the plebs wins hands down.

The only way to renegotiate is to leave the EU and re-apply for membership, which is hardly an option, I'd imagine.

Blogging it up

I hope you're enjoying my blog, under my real name, to boot (gotta change that picture, though) on the electronic version of this paper. It seems I've ruffled a few feathers already, not least of which are those of a young(er) friend of a paler hue, who has gone on record to say that she prefers honesty to brutality when it comes to voting or not voting for the Alternattiva Demokratika.

OK, so let's be honest: for a start, contrary to what is being said by the AD's supporters, my blonde friend among them, from my delving into the labyrinthine depths of the electoral law, it seems that if no party gets an absolute majority it is not seats that count. Seats (as opposed to a relative majority) only count if representatives of more than two parties are elected to the House.

If two parties only are represented, the one with a relative majority gets to run the country. To be honest, rather than brutal, if three parties get in, then the seats count and, while we're being honest, brutally honest, if you like, does anyone out there really think the AD have any chance of a seat?

Theoretically - and here I admit that I stand to be corrected as I am numerically challenged - AD could get, what, 20,000 first-count votes, evenly distributed among the 13 districts and end up with a precise total of zero seats. Which means, being honestly brutal, that the party with the more first-count votes compared to the other one will get to govern.

Even if I'm wrong about the numbers, the principle applies and, in a country where the right to govern hangs on a few thousand votes one way or the other, it is a significant principle. If you want to vote for Alternattiva out of genuine principle, then nothing I'm going to write is going to change your mind.

But if you're contemplating voting for them "to teach the Nationalists a lesson" or "because, poor things, they've been trying so hard", just carry on contemplating what the net result of your sentimentality will, in all probability, be.

Let me spell it out: Alfred Sant as Prime Minister, that's what. If you want this to happen, fine, but then, why not vote Labour and have done with it? At least that has some element of intellectual honesty, brutal though the result might be for the country.

While I was writing this bit, I received an e-mail from a young acquaintance, who used to be an AD local councillor for Swieqi, coincidentally a locality where sentiments such as those a couple of paragraphs up are often aired. The young man has resigned his affiliation with AD, because he's sick of the way they're attacking the Nationalists to try to gain votes, oblivious of the danger of the anti-EU Sant being elected by default.

He might be right, he might be wrong: all that's clear is that not even the AD is immune from accusations of political opportunism and egoism any more. So much for sentimentality and fresh-faced enthusiasm, it seems.

Bang bang

The federation for conservationist bird killers has drawn itself up to its full height and, with a pompousness that would be laughable if it weren't so tragically self-delusional, challenged the people who lent their images and their support, to BirdLife's campaign in favour of the rule of law, to a debate on TV about the EU's position on spring hunting.

Why can't these people grasp a few basic facts?

I, like the rest of the people who took part in the campaign, am not interested in "debating" with people who carry shotguns. There's nothing to debate, as far as I am concerned: I am against hunting, simply because the human race has gone beyond killing things for sport.

I am against the hunting movement in Malta, to boot, because of the proven inability to control the thuggish element, because of the idea that schoolyard insults and thinly-disguised threats are appropriate means of communication.

Hunting, as practised in the past, might have been, and remained, just about acceptable but they blew it and it's too late now to try to put Humpty Dumpty together again.

Sorry, guys, but that's just the way it is.