Partit miftuh ghal kullhadd

The best thing those delegati did this year was elect Toni Abela and Anglu Farrugia as deputy leaders. Those clowns are going to keep me in stitches for the next four years. Listen to the latest.

Clown No. 1, Toni Abela, was speaking at a party meeting in Gzira. Clown No. 2, Anglu Farrugia, was elsewhere, possibly cultivating international relations with a giraffe, having exhausted the elephant’s possibilities. Abela was in full flow, telling his audience that the new partit (new again, sigh) under Muscat’s charismatic leadership is miftuh ghal kullhadd, when Alfred Kitcher, a delegat tal-partit yelled out from the floor: “U zgur li miftuhin ghal kulhadd, biex ergajna dahhalna lilek wara li mort tifforma partit iehor kontrina”. Who’s this Kitcher? Somebody send him a bouquet. What I would have given to have been there.

Well, I told you that Toni Abela is more than a little touchy these days, blowing one gasket after another and so tightly wound he snaps.And he hasn’t got the right kind of style to deal with a situation like that by coming up with a quick remark and raising a laugh. So he gathered up his skirts, tossed his hair, spun on his heel and marched right off to the disciplinary cheeses over at the party HQ. The next thing Kitcher knew, there was a letter on his mat informing him that his party membership has been put on ice and that he is not to darken the threshold of another party club ever again, until the party machine goes through the Soviet motions and rehabilitates him. They didn’t say ‘Soviet motions’ but you get the gist.

The letter began “Ghaziz Alfred” – because this being the Labour Party, it doesn’t know that stern letters of this nature must begin with a stark ‘Sur Kitcher’ – and was signed by none other than our favourite boy in tight white pants, Jason Micallef.

Now here’s the little twist, the one that makes me wonder whether everyone in that party is off his or her ruddy rocker: Kitcher is actually one of those who voted to make Toni Abela deputy leader. As some people say, Holy Mother of God, can you credit it?

And as for that Toni and his partit of cranks, empty vessels and has-beens, if they can’t even tolerate a little heckling from their own delegates on home turf, how in heaven’s name are they going to cope with a free press when in government? Let’s hope they’re not relying on a box of matches and a couple of jerry-cans to do the trick, like the last time round.