I'm writing this, for those who read it after Muscat's appearance on the telly later on Tuesday, before said appearance, so it may seem a bit out-dated if the dear fellow actually says something that tells us what he intends to do when, for the fifty-first time of wishing, he becomes PM.

Apparently, fifty-one was the number of times that he said he would be PM during his speech on the Budget in the House – far be it from me to confirm or deny, since I didn't watch him or listen to his dulcet tones, doing something way more fun.

The PM (the current one, not the hopeful one) set Muscat something in the order of ten questions for him to answer in his speech, the last one of which, the one which required Muscat to confirm or deny whether he was in contact by email with top honchos in the Civil Service, was ignored totally by him. I'm not sure whether this means the story isn't true or whether Muscat just hopes we'll all forget about it, in which latter case I'm happy to disabuse him.

I'll keep reminding him.

According to Muscat's assorted groupies, he answered the PM's paltry ten questions with no less than fifty-one solutions – precisely the same number of times he said he'd be running the country.

They stopped short of crowing that "my daddy is bigger than your daddy" (or comparing the size of anything else for that matter) but all they needed was a fanfare or six, such was the glee with which they told us how marvelous, how simply superb, how indescribably brilliant, the economist (but not economist) Muscat had been.

I'm not entirely sure that we don't have a more fundamental issue with comprehending language than I used to think.

When you read some of the comments that follow this blog and my "Beck" column, you rapidly come to the conclusion that a number of people don't actually get English – they certainly don't get irony or mild sarcasm, but that's another issue altogether.

Now we've come to a situation where people don't seem to get the meaning of words whatever the language they're in: Muscat's fifty-one proposals are, in the main, and especially the ones relating to utility tariffs, simply fervent wishes and proposals simply that we believe him, sight unseen.

What else would you call "When I am PM, water and electricity bills will be made less terrible for families", without the slightest indication as to how this Valhalla is to be achieved?

The Lil'Elves call it a proposal, but seriously, guys, what is this guy on, that he thinks what he wants is what he will get?