Many have commented on the Government's puzzlingly bland third-personish condemnation of Gaddafi's thuggish reaction to the wave of protests that is sweeping Libya. That the Government might have been circumspect in order to protect Maltese citizens and assets in Libya is a consideration, it is true, but some greater robustness might have been appropriate.

You'd have thought, in the light of this reticence, that the Labour Party would have been strident and forthright, demanding that the Government comes right out with it and tells Gaddafi where to get off and no mistake.

After all, every time the Labour Party has the chance to make a noise, it leaps in like an excitable puppy, even if sometimes this results in little puddles being made. A few months ago, for instance, Joseph Muscat was pretty clear that he didn't think a referendum was the way forward on the divorce question, but now you'd think he'd invented the idea of consulting the Great Unwashed all on his own, clever boy that he is.

But when it comes to condemning Gaddafi, we have a silence that is as profound (as at 21:30 on Tuesday) as it is inappropriate. It is so strange that Labour have said nothing that I actually went online and searched, lest I had missed something, but it's a fact: Labour have said nothing, not even of the bland and vanilla variety. I searched timesofmalta.com for "Labour Libya" and "Labour condemnation" and found zilch.

Your guess is as good as mine as to why international statesmen of the calibre of Alex Sceberras Trigona, George Vella, Reno Calleja, Karmenu Vella and Toni Abela, to mention but a few, haven't seen fit to prompt their leader into action.

Why would Labour be worried about telling Gaddafi off? It's not as if they owe him anything, after all.