Despite what the columnists and pundits will tell you, the Nationalist Party’s successive drubbing at the polls was rightfully deserved.

It really says a lot about the Opposition when people are still willing to give it a wide berth despite the copious indiscretions and the mess of the party in power. Instead of being a dependable bulwark against an increasingly dogmatic government, the PN is now merely a cipher and a nominal opponent and it has only itself to blame.

People have neither forgotten nor forgiven its supreme arrogance while in power and certainly not the grandiosity and haughty disdain for the public some of its characters liked to show. The divorce referendum polemic, the public transport fiasco and the atrocious manner in which Franco Debono was treated by his party readily spring to mind.

If the Labour Party thinks it has been given a mandate to do whatever it pleases, that is probably correct. The PN, through its own fault, has now become too abject and toothless to counteract the excesses of the government and can only bark helplessly at what has become – in effect – a one-party State.

Well done PN. I am sure you are all very proud of yourselves.