Simon Busuttil is no ordinary politician.

This is not as much a statement of the obvious as you might think, given that his exposure, due to the fact that he is relatively young, has been somewhat limited.

It is, however, a reflection of the fact that he does not seem to have his brain disconnected from his mouth, as so many of them do. There have been many "for instances" in this regard, and I won't bore you by going back in time, but his reaction to Saturday's electoral drubbing suffered by the Nationalist Party is a perfect example of this.

It is true that Labour have nothing to be happy about and that in their heart of hearts, they must be worrying about the fact that despite their Leader's injection of his personal heart and soul into the campaign, they only increased their tally by a miserable ton and a half.

But this does not mean that the other bunch have anything to smile about, and the general air of quiet satisfaction that is issuing from areas not a million miles distant from PN HQ has pretty hefty whistling in the dark sound about it.

The Nationalists need to make no mistake: if they are to have a hope in hell of keeping Joseph Muscat and his bunch of sound-biters out of Government, they'd better pull a few more rabbits out of the hat than they seem to be inclined to do and work for it. The PN got whipped last Saturday and anyone who doesn't see that on their side needs to swallow a couple of espressos "extra strong" and take a reality check, sooner rather than later.

This is what makes Busuttil "no an ordinary politician": while the run of the mill and also-rans amongst his peers are going around doing politics as they always have, glad-handing and beaming and carrying on as if they needn't do anything different to the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that, he has the spine to say things as they are and hang the consequences.