This is what we have come to.

A government minister who used to strike fear in those who stood out against him has now become bait for an attack by a university student.

This is not about the student and not even about Minister Austin Gatt.

This is about the entire government and the entire population.

Maybe there was something planned in the whole episode at the university, maybe it was a ‘happening’ in today’s drama parlance just as modern art many times has similar happenings.

Maybe the minister’s ‘No Problem’ reaction came from a misunderstanding of what the student had just said.

But even so, we are back to the times of stocks and pillories, such as the one found at the entrance to Mdina. In medieval times, they used to put the town’s scoundrels in stocks and pelt them with bad fruit or worse.

In today’s times, at least that is an interpretation of what happened at Tal-Qroqq, we put ministers and pelt them with bad language.

What’s new? Coming from theatreland, the student is obviously familiar with pantomimes which at Christmastime pelt many a politician’s name with all kinds of appellations. And it’s not just at Christmastime: the Labour Party headquarters was recently the stage for an evening of political satire with its own quota of double-entendres.

Many have been debating whether this episode should have happened. In this free world we are now living, where comment is free and to be found on Facebook or the comment parts of news websites, most comments have been in favour of the student. Many more have been agreeing with her that the Arriva bus system is still a shambles.

On the other hand, many have professed being scandalized at some words the student used (for which she has publicly apologized) words that are not all that different from words we all use whenever we are exasperated.

On the whole, this is a healthy thing that has happened. Ministers still live in a bubble, they are driven around. Minister Gatt himself has never ridden on an Arriva bus unless that was when they were launched and imported many moons ago. What does he know about the trials and tribulations of people from Gozo, or those in Fgura who wait in vain as bus after bus pass them with no place for them?

This paper has said it over and over again: the Arriva bus system is a shambles, has been so from Day One, has improved slightly, but is still far away from any minimal level of efficiency. Buses are not on time, they take you to places where you do not want to go, people tend to wait for a lot of time for them, and then two or three of them turn up.

Whenever anything to do with the reform of the bus system was in offing, Minister Gatt was there for photo-ops. He was there when the contract was signed last November (when he savaged critics and doubters). He was there when the buses arrived. He was there on the eve of the launch. For all his denials now, how can he now distance himself from the Arriva fiasco?

But it’s not just Dr Gatt who is in the stocks. With him is the entire Cabinet, the government as a whole, who aided and abetted Dr Gatt in his venture and which so far has not distanced itself from the disaster, nor has it or any member of it been found riding on an Arriva bus. Nor has Dr Gonzi himself, who in more auspicious times had boasted too about Arriva as well.

Whatever the girl’s past and present, whatever her political leanings, at that time when she pelted Dr Gatt with verbal effluence, she represented most of the Maltese public. It’s about time that politicians start to answer for their commissions and omissions.

Instead of acting high and mighty, and offended at that, the government would do well to put on a contrite approach to something that is clearly not working and to come up with solutions, real solutions, workable solutions.

We all agree the previous system was an abomination – dirty buses, rough drivers, an uncomfortable ride. But the defects that have come with the new system are fast making us forgive all that was bad in the previous system.

So far, no government member, nor the prime minister himself, have come to the rescue of Dr Gatt. If they do not want to end up in pillories like Dr Gatt, now is the time for them to act with some credibility. Otherwise, they are inviting every student of drama for a spot of happenings.