I couldn't resist the pun, I'm always being told I tend towards flippancy even when things are serious, and they are serious enough. So, in no particular order, a few bullet points for you to consider and few questions to be answered.
- Someone, whoever he is or thinks he is, fired shots and hit the back of a car that was driving away from him, obviously with someone inside it, and the shooter, as of Monday lunchtime, had not yet been arrested or even asked to trot along to Court to be charged. Does the Minister responsible for the Police think, in all honesty, that he bears no political responsibility for this?
- This someone was Minister Manwel Mallia's driver and he was in charge of the Minister's official car at the time he discharged his weapon at a car driving away from him. Perhaps it is only coincidence that the Minister whose car was involved, even peripherally, is the Minister responsible for the police, the band of brothers who have failed to arrest, charge, arraign or whatever it is they should have done. Is the minister OK with this? Is the PM?
- Someone, for reasons known only to him, ordered the car that had been hit by the bullets fired by the Minister's driver, to be loaded onto a police truck and moved, in breach of even the most elementary rules of forensic investigation. The Acting Commissioner of Police has denied that he gave the order. He has not - as far as I can see - called for anyone's guts to be turned into garters for messing around with the crime scene, and nor has his Minister, the one whose car and driver are involved. Is the Minister OK with this? Is the PM?
- The Prime Minister has appointed a three-person Board of Inquiry to establish whether his Minister (Manwel Mallia, who was at Tal-Barrani, he boasts) is implicated in any cover-up. From where I'm sitting, this means that the PM has a) abdicated his responsibility to take political decisions and b) is quite happy to have Mallia sit in his Cabinet although, by necessary implication, he (the PM) is not fully convinced that Mallia is not implicated in a cover-up. Is the minister OK with this? Is the PM?
- If the PM was convinced that dR Mallia is not implicated, he would (should) have said so, not passed the buck to a posse of Judges Emeritii. If the PM is not convinced, then he has no option but to direct his MMinister to step aside, punto e basta. It's not rocket science, but is the Minister OK with this?
- The media is buzzing with a story, not yet denied as far as I can see, that Minister Mallia's right-hand man, who has figured in the media before and not as a simpatico, had tried to get the story of the magic, flight-diverting, bullets changed even after it was known that the fleeing car had been hit. Is the minister OK with this? Is the PM?
- It is well known that sometimes the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, but we are being asked to believe that the Minister didn't know what his right-hand man was doing. That may be the case, how would I know, but if it is, it shows that the Minister certainly was not in control of his Ministry and for this alone, even if not only for this alone, his position is untenable. Is the Minster OK with this? Is the PM?
- Questions are being asked as to the extent to which people seem to be toting guns all over the place, to the extent that the Speaker was moved to issue an edict that henceforth guns were not to be allowed into the House. Excuse me? Since when were they? Are you OK with this?
- And since when does the Minister responsible for the police, whose drivers are the ones packing heat, think that he can excuse what looks like a flagrant breach of the law relating to the carrying of concealed weapons, by making allegations about what may - or more likely may not - have happened in the past? Are you OK with this?
There's plenty more, but I don't have time for more right now and anyway the story keeps on imitating a gift that keeps on giving.