It is no strange feeling. Way back during the 1996-1998 legislature, the media was daily and, in some predictable cases, zealously featuring the backbench drama that was unfolding as then Labour Premier Alfred Sant tried to grapple with an ever-worsening situation that eventually led to a snap, fateful general election.

This time round, under a similarly besieged Gonzi government wistfully hanging on to its one-seat majority, we have been witnessing the absolute rarity of a Nationalist backbench revolt that some people think, erroneously say I, could lead to the same desperate scenario. For there is one special element missing from the current stalemate and it goes by the name of Dom Mintoff.

All put together, the six or more disgruntled Nationalist MPs involved do not by any stretch of the imagination form even one single micro fibre on the old warrior’s physical armour. In fact most of their foaming and moaning have been purposefully and subsequently glazed and laminated by frequent public reassurances of their loyalty towards both party and constituents, no doubt fearful of political repercussions the way only the Nationalists know how to make them happen.

The most vociferous voices of this frustrated group of backbenchers were quick, perhaps indecently so, to insist they would not ever think of crossing over to Labour in Opposition. Such courage was last seen in association with that famous Italian battle cry of “coraggio, fuggiamo”. The reaction of most neutral observers has rightly been: so what’s the fuss all about? If one is not determined to go the whole hog, that is to ultimately put the Prime Minister with his back to the wall, as Mintoff so brazenly and short-sightedly did in 1998, it is useless acting brave and belligerent.

People will just laugh at your antics and take you for what you really are: a whinger who does not have the courage of his conviction. A wannabe who is simply taking advantage of the government’s wafer-thin majority to extract some form of political gain. A desperado firing into the air in the hope of hitting some forlorn bird that unluckily happens to be flying past overhead. In the cruel Thatcherite dictum, a “wet”.

Gonzi knows that he is taking on men with no balls, let alone a Mintoff with ostrich-sized embellishments. It is perhaps why he continues to smile away the crisis by way of reassuring party supporters the government will survive, no matter what. Rather than a case of “with friends like these, who needs enemies”, it is more a question of “with enemies like these, who the hell needs friends”.

Of course there will always be the privilege of silencing the lambs by offering crumbs of bread. In government, in power and incumbent, it is easy to promise. After all, promising is a recognised Gonzi gift, divine in nature and incredibly useful. There is a whole nation to vouch for that. It’s the expectation – and keeping – of those promises that rings hollow to accustomed ears, but the bickering backbenchers may be ready and willing to accept that. For them, anything to avoid having to switch from the fun of electronic war games to real battles on the front.

And there are other ways of appeasement. One could be taken on trips to New York and other places as part of “high” government delegations. One could win a secretariat. One could even become a minister. There is even the likelihood of the whole Nationalist parliamentary group being transformed into one glorious Cabinet of Ministers overcrowding Castile. The nation can’t afford it, but if the shrinking has not worked, the enlargement could, politically speaking of course.

But if the Nationalist backbench rebels are happy to play the part of what we know in Maltese as “angli tal-festa” (for the uninitiated and the non-Maltese speaker, angli tal-festa are those cute little smiling angels that adorn the statues of village patron saints. They are held up in their positions by big, no-nonsense nails hammered straight into their cute, little, round butts, hence the simile), good luck to them.

They cannot, however, expect anyone to take them seriously. For all their defiant talk and their mutinous postures, they will still be taken for paper tigers that burn out immediately you put a hint of cigarette ember to them.

There is actually an ideological trait in all this. While Labour and progressive parties everywhere in the world know full well, sadly often through experience, the reality of backbench blues and their consequences, such displays of anger and restlessness within the Right and conservative enclaves are not only rare but also an obvious act of political hara-kiri.

Internal democracy in the latter case has no value, but tokenism certainly does. You are complaining of lack of consultation as a parliamentary group? Call a meeting and expect everyone to be happy. Still unhappy? Call another meeting, but please send your questions in writing beforehand. Anyone still unsatisfied? Then release the hungry hounds and let them warn everyone about loyalty and love of the party, even if they have to show their teeth and bark loudly in so doing. Slowly but surely, the insurgents will just give up, thrust their tails back to between their legs and whimper on until it is time to go begging again... for the votes, the many votes that would again entitle them to frontbench status. Or so they think.

It is a state of affairs that reminds me of that famous Bertrand Russell quip in his book “New Hopes For a Changing World” where he stated that “our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them.”