Warning: Don’t you dare mention Chris Fearne’s mummy

Chris Fearne with his canvasser Anna Vassallo, who he has put on the state payroll at the new cancer hospital. It’s OK if you touch her, but for God’s sake don’t touch his mummy.

If Erin Tanti ever gets to dissertation stage in his psychology course, he could consider the weird relationship between some adult Maltese men and their mothers as a tantalising and possibly untouched subject (“ARA TMISSLI S-SUGGETT TA’ OMMIJIET!”).

I recall that Franco Debono, who still lives with his in his 40s, had gone completely ballistic in parliament three years ago, using his parliamentary privilege to slander me – without being stopped by the Speaker, Michael Frendo – because I had “insulted his mother”.

It happened again in parliament tonight, though this time a non-MP was not slandered. Simon Busuttil, in his reply to the Budget speech, raised the subject of the government’s corrupt cronyism and the large army of henchmen and relations it has placed on the state payroll and in various decision-making positions.

He mentioned Carmen Fearne, the Health Secretary’s mother, who was appointed to the board of Zammit Clapp Hospital (putting mummy on the board – cute).

Fearne absolutely flipped his wig, turning an apoplectic shade of puce, jabbing his index finger stylishly in the Opposition Leader’s direction and bawling “Hamallu! Hamallu! Hamallu! Hamallu!”

Now if there is one thing the Opposition Leader most definitely is not, it’s a hamallu. If Simon Busuttil is a hamallu in the Health Secretary’s eyes, then what does that make some of those liquorice allsorts on the government benches?

All together now: “TMISSULUX LIL OMMU GHAX TAQBDU PUPLESSIJA.”

These liquorice allsorts don’t understand the distinction between explaining things rationally in defence of your mother and taking the ‘Tmissx lil ommi’ stance that presents her as a sacred and untouchable icon by dint of her motherhood. And quite frankly, Mr Health Secretary, if you don’t want people to “touch your mother”, you shouldn’t have appointed her to a hospital board in your portfolio. And if your predecessor appointed her, she should have stepped down when her son became health secretary.

But hamalli don’t know these things. So non-hamalli like me (and the Opposition Leader) are constrained to waste time explaining the obvious to liquorice allsorts.

Here’s a video Chris Fearne will enjoy.