Dr Franco Debono, one of the country's younger politicians who can be relied on to add to the jollity of political life by putting himself about a bit, probably to the consternation of his PM and certainly to the smug satisfaction of those who like the idea of Dr Gonzi being disconcerted, has let it be known that unless Minister Gatt "takes political responsibility" for the public transport situation, he (Debono) might have to abstain when the Labour motion censuring Gatt is voted upon.

What am I missing? From where I sit, Austin Gatt has political responsibility for public transport, whether he likes it or not, so what is the point being made by Debono? Gatt, in the aftermath of the Abela Garrett theatricals, made it clear that he will be hounding Arriva until they get it right, which might mean that Gatt will be barking at them for quite a long time, if all the doomsayers are right.

Is this not "taking political responsibility"?

Or was Debono's statement to the world at large truncated when reported, leaving out the corollary which would read "and resign"? I don't think this is the case, because your average journalist is hardly going to ignore a backbencher's demand that a Minister in the backbencher's own Government should resign, is he?

And Debono's reported "or else" consisted in saying that if Gatt doesn't take responsibility, he (Debono) might have to abstain on a motion effectively calling on Gatt to resign, which would hardly be logical, would it? I mean, asking the Minister to resign and if he doesn't, not voting for him to resign doesn't compute.

So one has to assume that what Debono would rather like, and what the travelling public dearly wants, for that matter, is for Austin Gatt to get his not inconsiderable persuasive powers to work on the chaps running Arriva and kicking their collective backsides until the system works.

Unless I'm missing something, that is, in which case I'm sure the usual suspects will get onto my case with their usual alacrity. The thing is, though, I'm not blaming Labour for anything this time, so they'll probably not feel moved to make their usual inane comments.