I write this while figuratively speaking shaking my head in some wonderment. Wonderment, if you'll forgive me, at how a young politician seems to be heading into what can only result in his political oblivion, much as I know that he would dearly, dearly love to avoid this.

The politician of whom I write, you will not be surprised to learn, is Dr Franco Debono, who has made (and from what I hear, continues to make) something of a not inconsiderable ripple in the field of justice, especially in the criminal area. At the same time, he has taken it upon himself to try to impale Minister Austin Gatt on the horns of the public transport albatross, if I might be allowed to mix my species. You'd have thought that criminal justice was enough of a field in which to roam, but apparently not.

Debono started out by demanding, more than somewhat stridently, that Gatt takes political responsibility for the not unsubstantial problems that accompanied the from-the-roots-up changes in the public transport system. It now transpires that Gatt had already taken this responsibility, by offering to resign, a resignation the PM quite rightly did not accept, given that there is still much to be done to change what we all seem to forget was a pretty primitive system.

This, however, was not enough to satiate Debono. He seems to be want more, with blood on it, even though - perhaps in part thanks to him - radical changes to the system are going to be brought into effect, ironically, a few days after Labour's motion of no confidence, a motion which can only be described as populist, if not opportunistic, because the latter word might affront their dignity.

Debono was even given the opportunity to carve out a niche for himself in the history of public transport in Malta when he was offered the job of drafting the Government's amendment to the motion, an opportunity he seems to have eschewed by insisting that he's still going to abstain on Labour's motion.

He cites in his defence Westminster-style theories, but from my knowledge of parliamentary practise, these theories also say that when a three-line whip is imposed, as it is likely to be, backbenchers (and even more so members of the Government, as Debono is by dint of his occupying the position of Parliamentary Assistant to the PM) toe the party line or face the music.

As it sometimes put, "the Whips giveth and the Whips taketh away", and in politics, no-one has a longer memory than a Whip, especially one who feels defied. True, this is the stuff of English politics, but the principle can, and very possibly will, be applied, mutatis mutandi, as the lawyers like to put it.

And while mentioning extra-territorial political theories, what was that story that crossed my radar, that Debono is contemplating trotting off to the European Commission to report the PM? Admittedly, it was carried in MaltaToday, and therefore subject to some discretion when believing it, but since when does the Commission have some sort of oversight over internal politics? Or is there some Commissioner who has been tasked with keeping Prime Ministers in line, while I wasn't looking, and if so, why isn't he occupying himself with that Greek chap?

It is not, of course, his individual political future alone that Debono is messing around with: if it was, I'd be sad for him but at the end of the day it's his choice.  The thing is, he's also risking being perceived as the man who paved the way for Joseph Muscat, from what I'm told a class-mate of his, to reach out with both hands and ask to be handed a country in pretty good shape on a plate, with water-cress around it.   

This is not a legacy, were I to be in Debono's shoes, that I would like to see looming ahead of me, being seen as the PN's version of Sant's Mintoff. 

This is because, while Debono abstaining on Friday won't bring down the Government in and of itself, or necessarily require Gatt to resign, at some point the PM is going to get sick and tired of taking time-outs from coping with the real issues the country faces to mollify uppity back-benchers and he might decide to call time.

At this point all bets will be off and no mistake, and quite apart from everything else, single-seat majorities, and the posteriors that sit in them, become a total irrelevance, while  the tribal nature of Maltese politics will have the jungle drums beating to a completely new rhythm.

To quote Debono's own Facebook page, about the only thing that is infinite in the universe (apart, possibly, from the universe itself) is man's capacity for stupidity, but he's still got wiggle-room to prevent himself being proof of the very point he makes himself, if he wants to use it. 

It's up to him.