Now this is what I call self-delusion

His website is www.falzonmichael.com because www.michaelfalzon.com is the fan-site of an Australian singer of the Jason Micallef type. But in any case, you’re not going to find anything interesting on it – no photographs of him riding elephants or touching his rear to the place where the Princess of Wales might have touched hers but didn’t; no pictures of his open-top sports car or invitations to hair-gel jamborees.

No. The fascinating thing about this kid who grew up round the corner from me but who spent his time diligently studying in his father’s grocery while the rest of us ran about the streets is the way he comes across so very well in one-to-one situations and so very badly anywhere he sees a crowd and is given a microphone. He impressed us all with his performance at the counting-hall, and he did it again last Monday on Bondiplus. But here’s the thing: he’s also the man who yodelled into the mike at Labour’s largest mass meeting ever, and the who came up with the football analogy to describe party politics (“Hawn ahna, it-tim taghna – Lejber Junajtit!”)

Yes, and he’s also the man who was deputy leader of the party when the party was told that it was going to win by a majority of at least 16,000 and then lost instead. He was deputy leader to the twice-defeated Alfred Sant who had also taken a hammering in the referendum. He was deputy leader of the Labour Party when it said it was ready to hit the ground running when an election was called and then it turned out that the party had no campaign to speak of because it thought it couldn’t lose no matter what it did or didn’t do.

And if you recall the clips from the television news and other public appearances of the Labour Party troika during the election campaign, when they were so sure they were going to win, the first thing that strikes you is how very different his demeanour was then to what it is now. Then he was arrogant and assertive, aggressive towards criticism, proud, self-assured and defiant (and rude, too). Now he is doing the meek lamb thing and hinting that he’s not to blame for what happened.

How can the man who helped make such a great hash of things now hope to be seen as astute leadership material? I hope he is not going to join the queue of those now lining up to tell us that they disagreed with Sant and Jason but felt obliged to toe the line, so the defeat is not their fault but Sant’s and Jason’s.

Oh come on. If you’re deputy leader for a full five years in the run-up to an election that your party loses when it should have won, you have been a major contribution to the problem – if not by your actions, then by your inaction.