One of the main planks of parliamentary democracy is party discipline. If every MP acted as he wanted to on every issue that is put to the vote in the House, anarchy would prevail, because the Opposition would demand - quite rightly - that the PM hands over the keys to Castille every time he loses a vote.

At least, if it's an important vote, such as whether to park a yachting marina in L'Isla Creek or something like that - otherwise, the Government would be able to trundle on and, well, govern. Actually, it wouldn't, because too much time would be wasted patching up the damage and positioning postures to shore up the Government to leave any available to run the country.

So basically, MPs should do as they're told, pretty much and generally speaking, unless their conscience drives them to the point of no return, which is where they resign and assume a position on the moral high ground. Alternatively, they could cross the floor and ruin their political career for ever, being as their ex-mates would shun them for life and their new ones would trust them as far as they can throw them and, given that politics tend to being a pretty fast way to an expanded waistline, that ain't likely to be very far.

Toeing the party line is no dishonour: MPs get elected precisely because they are a cog in the machine that we the people have decided is fit to run the country. Yes, fine, there are those grand theories about representing their constituents and being their own man and such-like fine ideas, but at the bottom line and the end of the day, to employ a couple of well-worn (out) similes, these guys are part of the greater whole, the sum of the parts that is more than the arithmetical total of the whole bunch counted up.

In other words, while they are expected to keep the PM and his Ministers in check by acting as an opposition bringing up the rear (as opposed to the real Opposition, which just goes around saying "No" and "it's all your fault") the corps of MPs, and each individual one of them, has to submit to the whip.

And that (submitting to the whip) is not a euphemism for enjoying the ministrations of some Belle du Monde, it means obeying party policy and party instructions. You may or may not agree with this, and I admit it's a somewhat simplistic description of the Westminster model, which itself is undergoing some changes with the advent of the Camercleggo duo, but down at the essence of the thing, that's the line along which the cookie crumbles.

Moving down a rung or so from the exalted heights of the House, we come to the mini-Parliaments that reside in each locality.

Here, and again you might or might not agree with the system, but that's system we have, the party machines still have some relevance, to put it mildly. The snag is, because of the breadth of the catchment area from within which the peoples' mini-representatives are chosen, many of them have even less of a grasp of their obligations as a party man or woman than your average MP. Many of them (and of the MPs) are generally people with a highly developed sense of their potential for being a shaker and mover in the community and with this, perhaps, comes a somewhat over-developed sense of being "above" being told what to do.

I wasn't a fly on the wall while the current Sliema Mayor, Mr Nikki Dimech was being questioned by the cops.

I, like everyone else, know very few facts, and one of these is that Mr Dimech stated that he had taken a "commission" from a Council contractor. It is also a fact that he is now saying that he only said this to the interrogating officer because he felt intimidated and was getting desperate for his inhaler.

Some way down the story-line, the Nationalist Party came to the conclusion that Mr Dimech should step aside, there being this peculiar notion abroad in the land that corruption isn't an attribute that lends itself to the definition of "the Mayor we'd like to have".

Mr Dimech, in the meanwhile spraying a variety of allegations around in the manner of the various tabloid-wannabes that masquerade as newspapers in this country, thought otherwise.

The situation has deteriorated since then, as anyone who reads above-mentioned tabloids knows, with other Councillors from the town of ladies who lunch going about alleging that they don't much like this strange idea that their party should tell them what to do. I don't know the dramatis personae involved, having never met Mr Dimech or the cops who are on his case or the Councillors who are feeling hard done by.

I do, however, know one of the protagonists, who is getting quite a volume of opprobrium dumped on him, namely Dr Paul Borg Olivier, the PN's General Secretary, a job that entails his having to put himself about a bit and read people, especially recalcitrant ones, the riot act. And I do know that the picture of him that's being painted by the Sliema Councillors who have had their collars felt by him can't really be accurate, since if anything can be said of Paul, it's that he might be a bit too soft for the job.

That being as it may be, we have a situation where, for better or for worse, a political party has decided that it's time for one of its people to step down and it expects its other people to comply.

Whether it's because the person concerned is guilty of corruption, as Mr Dimech vehemently denies that he is, or whether it's because, as someone who has chosen to admit to corruption but retracted it, even for perfectly valid reasons, he has rendered his position untenable because of the public's perception of his fitness for office (even if only because he seems to be a bit prone to take snap - and questionable - decisions in his own interest as he sees it at the time) is immaterial in the context of my discussion.

And now to sit back and enjoy the comments.