We're used to inane remarks emanating from the so-called left, such as from that Privitera person or the other assorted Lil'Elves who seem to delight in shooting peculiar comments on the bottom of every story that they see as anti-Labour.

We're also used to these remarks becoming more and more personal and more and more vicious the more the stories and opinions contrary their illusion that Labour is the be-all and end-all of democratic thought and action. This is why I tend to get moderately hot under the collar when I hear people expressing the thought that "bloggers" should tone down their material and not get personal: personal attacks have been a watchword of the so-called Left from the days when you were beaten up for reading PN newspapers.

But when certain remarks (I don't mean the vicious ones, of this he's not guilty) spew forth from such as the Leader of the Opposition, then one has to start worrying about this country.

Let me give you a fr'instance.

On Wednesday night, after Labour had attached themselves hook, line and sinker (not to mention lock, stock and two smoking barrels) to what has now become clear was a personal agenda driven crusade combining a degree of vengefulness with a dose of raw ambition, Joseph Muscat had the brass neck to call on the Prime Minister "to do the decent thing", though he failed to follow through and tell us what "the decent thing" is meant to be.

With shallow remarks like this it's not surprising that the Priviteras of this world would gallop away with the peculiar notion that the hatchet-job, ill-conceived and maliciously-motivated as it is becoming clear that it was, on Mifsud Bonnici is some sort of reason for the PM to call an election.

What could be further from the truth? The country, for all the hysterical remarks by Labour's motley collection of screeching fishwives, superannuated hippies and pretend entrepreneurs, to say nothing of the twisted and bitter, is keeping its head above the water and surviving despite the storms all around us. We are a solid democracy, whatever Marlene Mizzi might say, and the country is governable.

Why would the PM want to call an election now, and risk us having to make a leap of faith based on a set of Labour policies that at the very, very best can be described as pious hopes and gimmicks?