On Monday night, the TV chanced on "Inkontri", Super One TV's talking-heads show hosted by one of the Brothers Grim(a) I couldn't hear all of what was being said, though at some point, mention was made of other media figures, and not on complimentary terms, from what I could see of the body-language. Are Labour ever going to get over the fact that people have opinions that are not necessarily Labour-endorsed?

The guest panel was made up of the hackneyed mix of pro-Labour bright young things (well, Gavin Gulia was one of them and he's hardly that young any more, but he's still younger than I, so I suppose he fits) and any available non-Labour people, to "balance" the thing out. This time around, Mr Gejtu Vella and Mr Charlo Bonnici were on, and try as they manfully tried to instil a dose of context into the thing, they were fighting an uphill battle, because the other side kept insisting that what the buses were doing was of supreme importance.

You can see where Labour are coming from, of course - their leader insists on keeping his cards close to his chest, even if this means that the families who could benefit from his plans to slash utility tariffs have to keep on paying the higher rates. This means that the smug young blades have to keep snapping at Government's heels like annoying Chihuahuas, whinging about buses they never use, rather than discussing more weighty topics. Even Libya is a no-go area, due to the antics of the Old Guard (you know, the ones they try to make us forget about by wheeling out Simon Micallef Stafrace and Owen Bonnici)

The cherry on the cake came when the Bro Grim(a) unburdened himself of a Jerry Springer-style little sermon at the end. Were he to have been in the House, cries of "reading, reading" would have rung out, as it was obvious that he was delivering a prepared text and, incidentally, his perfect evocation of Henry VIII in a shiny green suit and in his latter, more corpulent, years is evidence of why people like me and him should really take to the box with great caution, if at all. A flattering medium for us it ain't, by a country mile.

What was really tickling, though, was not the messenger, though he was amusing enough. It was the message, which distilled to its essence read like a paean to democratic values and the need for the country to adopt them. I'm not entirely sure Grim(a) didn't jump onto the "why not start thinking cross-party" bandwagon that is being trundled about, for all the world as if we're having a Greek tragedy.

One Anna Camilleri, if she had been watching, would no doubt have fallen about laughing, if hollowly, at the sight and sound of Joe Grima, Minister of Tourism when she was deprived of her tourist-guide licence in circumstances which led to the Constitutional Court being less than complimentary of said Joe Grima, pontificating about democratic values.