Surely there’s a vet who has some horse tranquilliser that Carmen could use

I was on a plane last night so I missed the sight and sound of Rabid Jeff on Super One accusing me of having illicit access to other people’s Top Secret Medical Records in breach of data protection, which is how I ‘found out’ that Louis Grech has cancer.

You’re an idiot, Jeffrey.

That Louis Grech has cancer has long been common knowledge among his extended network of associates. If you didn’t know then maybe you’re not as ‘in’ with Labour as you thought you were. And if you knew, then expect that I did too.

Louis Grech never bothered to hide it. When he was just a member of the European Parliament, he had no reason to keep it secret.

I have known for ages. But when he was just a member of the European Parliament, it was completely irrelevant. It wasn’t anyone’s business really. It wasn’t even news. Yes, there was a public interest element, but nothing pressing.

Now that he is deputy Labour leader, stands to become deputy prime minister, and has been named by Muscat as the one who will effectively do Muscat’s job, it is totally relevant.

It is as relevant as it was when Alfred Sant underwent treatment for cancer in 2007. He instructed his medical team to give a press conference.

And yes, it is extremely significant that Joseph Muscat is so short of good people that he has had to resort to a 65-year-old man who is ill for use as a crutch while telling us that his party is new, fresh and progressive.

Rabid Jeff and the other Backwater Bunnies are busy being scandalised on Facebook because I ‘broke the news’ (some news, which was known to hundreds) that Grech has cancer. Some of them are, it goes without saying, more than a little confused and think that I “insulted him with his cancer”.

They’ve got their social backgrounds confused. Where I come from, cancer isn’t an insult. Nor is any other disease. It’s the unenlightened who think that way, the sort who are inclined towards Labour.

Others think that it is shocking to even mention the word. Funny, I’d forgotten about that. I’d forgotten how in certain backward parts of Maltese society, cancer is the Great Unmentionable. I vaguely remember somebody saying back in the distant past, ‘ma nghiduhiex dik il-kelma’ and thinking, ‘My God, ta’ wara l-muntanji’.

Of course the public should be given a status report on the deputy leader’s health. Look to the world’s leading democracies for guidance. The international press, and not just America, has been briefed every step of the way since Hillary Clinton fell ill.

Can you imagine a scenario in which Ed Miliband or David Cameron could keep their cancer hidden from the Great British Public? Even if they would, that is, which they wouldn’t.

Rabid Jeff should just zip it. He cuts an ever more pathetic figure as he allows himself to be sucked so eagerly and spinelessly into his wife’s Labour vortex. Both wives, ironically.

Last Sunday, he ate a cosy lunch at Cardini’s near the Preluna Hotel in Sliema with Jose Herrera, Mrs Jose Herrera, Consuelo Herrera, Mr Consuelo Herrera (Robert Musumeci – miskin), and Mrs Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando II.

Ghax Malta taghna lkoll, tafux.

Perhaps they were discussing the splendid carnival ball they put on at the HQ of the Malta Council of Science and Technology the previous night.