As I have had occasion to mention, Richard Cachia Caruana is an old friend. I'm making this clear again because I have no doubt that Labour's Puny Elves and their heroes, Debono and Pullicino Orlando, will use this to make stacks of combustible hay. They can, of course, kiss the area of my anatomy to which one usually refers in order to signify failure to give a damn.
The Hon. Dr George Vella, no doubt with the solemnity befitting a media event held outside the House, has announced that Labour has tabled a motion to ask for Cachia Caruana's resignation because Wikeleaks – of all the sources to rely on – has given them evidence of collusion with some foreign power or other.
It's a pretty turn of events when a Labour politician of the old school gets all precious about colluding with foreign powers, but let's leave that aside. North Korea has done Labour enough harm, after all, and it would be unfair to keep harping on about it.
Does the honourable medical gentleman really think his party's patently obvious ploy to embarrass the Government hasn't been rumbled by us the great unwashed? Apart from people like Godfrey Grima and his ilk, who lionise Franco Debono for reasons that are uniquely and unequivocally entwined with Labour's thirst for power at all costs, is there anyone who does not recognise this motion for the opportunistic stunt that it is?
Labour, it has become clear, will rise above nothing in its mission to seize Government, even resorting to invoking the country's highest institution (which is what they mistakenly believe Parliament to be, betraying their inherent incomprehension of the notion of separation of powers and thereby of democracy itself) to call for the resignation of an individual who is accountable only to his employers, the executive and who is, for all it's worth, not even entitled to address the people who – if Labour have their way – will be sitting in judgment of him.
No doubt to this people with a grasp of national affairs that matches that of that Debono fellow will respond that Cachia Caruana is a component of the oligarchy and therefore fit only to be the object of contempt, but towards sentiment this I will act merely as a mirror and reflect the sentiment back at them.
What next, pray, a motion tabled to ask for, say, my resignation from the ranks of columnists and bloggers, since I have also been characterised as a component of the oligarchy? Maybe another motion to make blogging by private citizens such as Caruana Galizia an activity requiring the fiat of a Parliamentary Committee, to be chaired, of course, by some heroic scholar of the Constitution?
I am tempted to revert to the vulgarity of my second paragraph in order to close, but I will restrain myself.