Isn’t it astonishing how in a matter of months we have gone from prioritising and talking about jobs, the economy, education, training, the power station, utilities bills and the crisis in neighbouring Libya to discussing – quite endlessly – the new law that allows men to marry men and women to marry women, and all of those to adopt other people’s children and those of their spouse.

Then, just in case there is a pause during which we draw breath and remember that Joe’s ability to marry Salvu and adopt Shanaya is not going to pay the bills or ensure that Shanaya gets an education and Salvu gets a job that can keep Joe while he plays the role of home-maker and cares for Shanaya, the prime minister announces that the next priority on his agenda is the decriminalisation of the possession of illegal drugs – which ones? – for personal use, though he hasn’t specified in what circumstances and whether it is going to be all incidences of personal possession or just first-time offenders and people, say, aged under 21 (anybody older than that really has no excuse).

If we show any sign of letting up in this particular discussion, and start remembering the rising unemployment and sinking consumer spending figures, as well as the escalation in government debt, the prime minister will up the ante by increasing the spectacle of distraction in the arena. He will have us talking about whether it’s going to be marijuana alone or also cocaine, crack and heroin, and he will trade on public ignorance of the fact that first-time offenders in possession for personal use are never given a prison sentence and if they are under 18 generally do not get a criminal record either. It pays him to paint a picture of a prison full of 16-year-olds caught with their first joint.

While we are all busy talking about this kind of thing, all eyes are off the real issue of exactly what might be happening with the new power station which is scheduled to open fairly soon according to pre-electoral promises and which hasn’t even begun to be built yet. Meanwhile, there are increasingly loud whispers that there are problems with the contract between the government and the company selected to build the power station and provide the service – has it even been signed yet? – but the prime minister has deflected the need to resign as he said he would if electricity tariffs aren’t lowered by March 2014 by lowering them anyway, new power station or not, by selling 30% of the state power monopoly to the communist dictatorship of China, and using the money to subsidise the cost of electricity to consumers. In other words, China now owns 30% of Malta’s power monopoly so that we can spend less on electricity and more on smart-phones and cars.

The Opposition, instead of dragging the public’s eyes back to the ball, is helping the government in its mission of distracting people by obscuring the bread-and-butter issues with piles of glitter clad in tight, shiny pants (the men) or flak jackets and army fatigues (the women). You’d think all of Malta, and not the standard 10 per cent, is homosexual and what’s more, really camp or butch with it, and that nobody needs a job or has bills coming through the door, not even those who made a forced effort to prance about in St George’s Square because the Labour Party was kind enough to pay for a party which more poorly attended than Sunday mass at a Sliema parish church.

This government is not making us ‘the best in Europe’, as it claims. It is making us less and less European, and more and more disengaged, as easily distracted from what really matters as the illiterate and childish masses of a third-world peasant dictatorship. To distract them from issues of real concern, like the provision of food on the table, just propel people into a frenzy about religion or a crusade about tradition. As long as they are focussing their anger on ‘gays’ for imposing ‘their’ values on the rest of us, they will not think to get angry at the government for being unable to govern.