I despair at the level of political analyses that some sorry excuses for the media display.

Two of the three renegades have been reported, variously, as being in the process of considering their position, probably not voting with the Government, not being wildly in love with the Nationalist Party and being about to scuttle off to see the President or whatever Pullicino Orlando was hinting he was going to do. The third, Mugliett, seems to have faded into the middle distance, as a precursor to fading out completely, it can only hoped.

What is it that these sectors of the media have not grasped about the developments as the weekend kicked off? Do they really think that the PN's Executive is as naive as all that, that what was tantamount to telling the three turncoats to bugger off was not completely and unequivocally understood by the Executive as being a pretty significant step?

Debono, Pullicino Orlando and Mugliett were turned, at a unanimous stroke, into the living dead, politically speaking. They are non-persons, zombies, if you will, and if this means that they will choose to bring down the Government, then so, and on their heads, be it, the Executive knew this was possibly going to be the case and decided, and many would say about time too, to go ahead.

This means, though to read some areas of the media, and to listen to Joseph Muscat, you wouldn't notice, that these three are no longer relevant to medium-term political strategic thinking. Is this rocket-science? I think not - if I were a teenager, I'd be going "duuh, Franco Debono might bring down the Government, you thiiiink, veraaa?"

But then, these sectors of the media have been having such paroxysms of joy that the Government was being tormented by these characters that it's going to be difficult for them to stop now - they're going to have to keep giving Pullicino Orlando and Debono coverage, because otherwise, we're going to come to the conclusion that even these sorry excuses for journalists have noticed that in truth, both of them should be profoundly ignored from now on.

Let's just see who they've built into such hollow heroes, shall we?

Debono has revealed his true colours, by letting it slip that it's Austin Gatt who is the real target, and this because what Debono sees as his fiefdom, the Fifth Electoral District, is being contested by Manwel Delia, who is identified with Gatt. What price the much vaunted reforms in the law now, ay?

Pullicino Orlando's motives are even less evidence of any integrity of purpose, which is quite an achievement, when you think about it, having motives which are less worthy than Debono's. Pullicino Orlando has been left swinging in the wind by the very people who seem to have been feeding him bait, letting him be the front man in what the Prime Minister has described as a frame-up.

That the Labour Party has it in for Cachia Caruana is pretty obvious, and since it's equally obvious that whatever ammunition they had was certainly not up to the job of bringing him down (because it was utter garbage) they fed it to the one person who could swing the axe because of the happy accident of his being in a position to abuse of his determining vote in the House. Pullicino Orlando duly obliged and his reward - if appearances do not deceive - is to be given free muscle to parade around like the little popinjay that he is.

What a revealing turn of events: the country is brought to the brink of having shallow opportunists and chancers like Muscat and his Labour Movement Party take over not because of fundamental issues such as the handling of the economy or the international situation but because two self-absorbed specimens think the sun shines out of their general direction.

And the even better irony is that this whole thing is taken as evidence that the Nationalist Party is imploding: two or three renegades flex their artificial muscles and the whole party suddenly becomes shaky. I'd ask, but the Lil'Elves won't answer, what it says about the Labour Party, about their aligning themselves with such sorry specimens.