I’ve been a bit in holiday mode and I failed to notice that I haven’t given the Lil’Elves something to be having a whine about for quite a bit now. That’s what happens when you get a long weekend followed by another one in pretty close succession, you fall out of work mode (not that this is work, all that much) and let things slide a bit.

I’ll be back soon with something else, I suspect, but in the meantime, here are a few thoughts to keep you amused.

A question, for you.

Is Joseph Muscat being bamboozled and bewildered by his cohorts? As an aside, is the use of the word “cohorts” correct? I’ve always thought it referred to big numbers of people, generally soldiers of a Roman mien, but plenty of people use it to refer to side-kicks, such as those with whom Joe is flanked. In this latter sense, his cohorts are the people around him at the apex of the Labour Party, pretty much the two Deputy Leaders and that Micallef chap, whose aversion is fish and chips is becoming pronounced.

Leaving aside the semantics of the matter, I come back to the question posed: is Muscat being buffeted and battered by advice from his lads? No ladettes, incidentally, at the top in Labour, from what I can see (not that the other lot have many, for that matter)

I ask because some of the stuff with which he’s come up recently smacks a bit of the – how shall I put this without being offensive? – one Big Mac short of a Happy Meal? – well, something like that.

For instance, this whole VAT-refund thing. As I’ve written a couple of times before, I’m all for the citizenry trying to get its cash back from the Revenue, though if it is entitled to do in this particular instance, I’m not clear since tax law makes my brain hurt (and the mere fact that everyone says something is so doesn’t mean it is so) and if it takes a Court case to do it, then so be it, it’s heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to Court we go (or they go, in this case, since I don’t have a case)

But if the Labour Party felt that it should have a bit of a stunt with going to Court and have a couple of days in the light of the good publicity this got them, quite deservedly, why, I really have to ask, did Muscat have to come out with the dictum from on high that when Labour are elected, whatever the Court says, the contested money will be paid to the chaps and lasses who put the case in the first place?

Old Labour’s disdain for the Rule of Law and the Courts was well known and well despised but weren’t we all being told that a new fresh breeze has blown through the corridors of power down Mile End way and carried away all the cobwebs?

And also, why bother wasting everyone’s time and money (and it will be substantial, in both cases) with Court cases if you’re going to do precisely what you like whatever the result in Court? Frankly, if I were adjudicating the matter, I’d be tempted to cite someone for contempt, because wasting the Court’s time in the full knowledge that you’re not going to abide by the end result is pretty contemptible.

Just who advised Muscat to take this course of action, huh?

And then to cap it all, he does an Anglu and trots off to the Commissioner of Police to ask him, as if he has nothing better to do with his time, to investigate comments allegedly made by a couple of Ministers in connection with the St John’s thing, which we all thought was dead and buried.

Apparently not – it seems that if there’s a couple of ounces of life left in that dead horse, Labour wants to squeeze them out. The complaint: that said Ministers were grumbling that “someone knows how to work the system” (I would have thought that knowing how to work the system was a prerogative – I’d be way more annoyed that people don’t know how to do that) and that “pressure was being put on public officers”, which again I would have thought was the function of people in Government, to kick the civil-service’s collective behind and get it to do something.

It’s not as if St John’s is anyone’s private fiefdom, after all. This is a national monument and what was being proposed, whether you agree with it or not (that boat has sailed, now) was for no-one’s individual benefit. So where, in heaven’s name, is the criminal element?

So exactly what Joe M is trying to do, other than get a few column inches, is not entirely clear to me. I’ve no doubt some of the Lil’Elves will chip in and act all scandalised, here and in other media, but really, is anyone who is not dazzled by the glitter that is not gold that is produced by the four men at the top of Labour going to be impressed by these two complaints? That someone (whoever) knows how to operate the system and that someone (whoever) is trying to pressure people into doing something?

Have a nice extension to the weekend, folks.