Transport minister Jesmond Mugliett was recently supposed to have a press event linked to the ‘bendy-buses’ idea for the overhaul of the public bus service.

But Victor Spiteri, the chairman of the association of bus owners, apparently did not get the message and was not there and ADT CEO Gianfranco Selvaggi was late.

A furious minister rounded on his communications coordinator, Darrell Pace, and ticked him off for not being a good staffer in front of the people present.

For long-suffering Mr Pace this was the last straw: he just upped and left, packed his things and resigned from his post.

In an increasingly hysterical government, this is not the only such case.

Another minister who has been shedding staffers like trees shed leaves in autumn is George Pullicino.

His most recent loss was his ministry’s director general, Martin Bugelli, a former aide to President Ugo Mifsud Bonnici and later part of the Maltese delegation in Brussels.

Earlier, Mr Pullicino also lost the services of his personal assistant, Lino Mintoff, who went to head the Malta Business Bureau, and that of his assistant communications coordinator, Ingrid Zerafa.

And he or rather his ministry has managed to have a wholesale haemorrhage at the ministry’s paying service for agriculture, beginning with its head, Joe Micallef.

Other ministers have managed to hold on to most of their staffers, even if they were not all up to mark. Others have had changes without the turmoil that accompanied some of the changes mentioned here.