Labour’s opportunistic motion yesterday naturally created a flurry of media interest, though driving home that afternoon, I didn’t spot any motorists pulled to the side of the road to listen with a furrowed brow to radio reports on the next installment of the political crisis.

I watched Bondi+ with the Hons. Zammit Dimech and Bonnici, Owen of the latter ilk (there’s only one FZD, one needn’t identify him) debating the reasons for Labour’s recourse to the Standing Orders of the House to shine a spotlight on the pending motions about the (former) Minister for Justice and about Mr Cachia Caruana.  The CMB Motion, let us call it that, has been pending since mid-December (shock, horror) while the RCC Motion is but a few days old.

Canny operator that he is, Zammit Dimech adroitly ignored the elephant in the room, that is to say the fact that Labour have pulled this little stunt simply because that Debono fellow is having another of his episodes and they seem pathologically unable to resist the temptation to help him irritate him.

This left Bonnici with the unenviable task of trying to explain why, suddenly, out of the blue as it were, Labour has been hit with an unquenchable desire to have their motions debated, only coincidentally (yeah, right) when a money bill is coming up and completely unconnected with Debono’s latest little tantrum.

In the manner of Labour down the years, Bonnici, unable to admit, for obvious reasons, that his Leader had done this because of what Debono was doing (one of the obvious reasons for this being that Labour can’t admit, for all that this is the case, that their agenda has become Debono-driven) reached for the Standing Orders, saying that what was being done was in accordance with the Orders.

Yes, well, that is a given, but the Orders are not justification in and of themselves for doing anything, they are merely the mechanism by means of which anything is done.  This circular argument, that Labour are doing what they are doing because the Standing Orders allow it, is meaningless and supplies no answer to the questions “why” and “why now”, which were put by Bondi a couple of time each, with no coherent answer being forthcoming.

What Bonnici also didn’t explain, but this merely a side-show, is how the price of gas fixed by suppliers who are independent of the Government is an austerity measure taken by the Government, which is a comment he made and which was not picked up by anyone. 

The only way that Bonnici could have convinced anyone that the two motions needed to be discussed immediately if not sooner would have been to show that there was something of impelling urgency about them and here he was left to flounder awfully.

The problem for Labour is that the RCC Motion is based on a complete misread of (of all things) a Wikileak about a cable that is fully eight years old and that relates to a diplomat’s take on a meeting held fully four years before Malta’s membership of the Partnership for Peace was reactivated (rather than suspended, as some terminally confused Labour functionary appears to think, perhaps because they think that “partnership” is an exclusively Labour concept)   During the meeting, the view appears to have been expressed that given that Malta’s application was not withdrawn but merely suspended, this might obviate having to invoke a Parliamentary vote.

So eager are Labour, when it is convenient for them, to bluster about the strength of the country’s democratic institutions (that is, unless it is more convenient to not do so) that they are seriously trying to convince us that this expressed opinion is indicative of some sort of dastardly plot to render the House impotent. 

So much is this so that Bonnici referred to the word “obviate” at least three times, for all the world as if it was some heinous blasphemy, making me wonder whether he knows the meaning of the world and the nuances that may be applied to it.   Frankly, I don’t think the tone of diplomatic discussions is one that is comprehended by Labour: given the way their Leader talks to North Korean diplomats, I think it is not.

And then there’s the CMB Motion, which shock, horror (again) has been pending since December.  Oh, wow, a motion about a problem that Labour has studiously ignored for years, the problems attendant on the administration of justice, has been pending for a few months and suddenly, Labour have to draw themselves up to their majestic height and come over all sanctimonious about it.

I, for one, wearing another hat, have been inviting politicians to take this particular bull by the horns, drag it out of the partisan arena and try to find a solution. 

What has been the result?  Apart from this motion, which is partisan in the extreme, we’ve have had people like Labour’s spokesperson Herrera making noises, and the less said about some of his ideas the better.

Let’s face it, as Labour won’t but the country certainly is coming to, these motions are nothing more than evidence that Labour has no compunctions about cozying up to that Debono person, hoping to drive him over the edge into the chasm of political oblivion that will swallow him up if he takes his attitude towards his Prime Minister to what Labour know is its logical conclusion.

Power might, in the immortal aphorism, corrupt or not, but the lust for power has become so ingrained in Labour’s make-up that they will really stop at nothing.