Pranksters playing childish games are just about fine in Opposition – you sort of expect that kind of thing from those whose job it is to throw bottles from the back row, as it were. As long as the game-playing is not the default position but a tactic rarely resorted to, then nobody should have cause for complaint or concern.  But when the Opposition becomes the government, then the game-playing has got to stop. Nobody wants to see a person in authority behaving like that, pulling pranks and mocking others. It creates a feeling of insecurity and general unrest, much the same as in an office or any other place of work where the boss has taken to behaving like a silly jerk, distracted by the vain glory of his own success.   

When you’re in charge, for instance, it’s time to stop playing your audience for laughs at your rivals’ expense when they’re not in the room. The prime minister hasn’t quite worked this out yet. Instead, his mockery of his opposite number has become increasingly contemptuous and nasty, rather than witty. I imagine he’s aiming for wit – British humour and all that – but he really misses the mark badly. For a start, poking fun at your rival - at anybody, really – in public, to get laughs and score points at his expense, is the height of bad manners unless you are a stand-up comedian and do it for a living. But even stand-up comedians don’t crack stand-up jokes about other comedians. Certain types of people in the prime minister’s audience will not read this as bad manners, but I rather suspect that they will still be uncomfortable with it at some level. They will sense that there is something wrong with a prime minister who snipes personally at the Opposition leader, as though he is in the schoolyard, when the Opposition leader is not present.

Our prime minister admires David Cameron rather a lot, and I would think he spends quite a bit of time watching him perform in the House of Commons. There’s a lot of sniping going on there, with barbed remarks flying across the floor, and Cameron is quite good at it. But the point is this: when he lets fly a remark in Ed Miliband’s direction, Ed Miliband is there to hear it. Any splendid put-downs he may make are directed right at the person in question, and are not used to play for laughs when the person is not there. In other words, it’s a battle of witty insults in the House, and not a solo snipe-fest outside it.

There was a lot to mock in Alfred but I don’t recall either Eddie Fenech Adami or Lawrence Gonzi, when they were prime minister and Sant was Opposition leader, sniping at him personally during public meetings, ensuring that their spiteful sound-bites would make the main news and eclipse anything else they might have to say about policy matters. Opposition leader Sant was ridiculously rude about Prime Minister Gonzi. It’s especially difficult to forget that strange performance of his in front of a vast meeting of Labour supporters, in which he droned the prime minister’s name as though trying to frighten a child. But when he was prime minister himself, he quit those stupid games and only snapped when Dom Mintoff rattled his cage. And then he really let rip and it was suddenly all over for him.

I somehow always got the impression that Lawrence Gonzi did not like Joseph Muscat at all and found it difficult to relate to him on a personal level. But never once in the five years when he was prime minister and Muscat was Opposition leader do I remember hearing him speak in public to mock Muscat or make some clever-Dick remark at his expense. When you are prime minister, that sort of behaviour is undignified. You are no longer you. You are your role. The prime minister of a country does not make fun of others, not unless he is in parliament and sparring with them directly. And even then, the tone has to be perfectly right: witty and not bitchy. Unfortunately, the prime minister’s remarks tend too far towards the latter. It demeans him, and upsets those who are watching.