Hot on the figurative heels of no less than three confidence votes - a no-confidence vote in the transport minister, a government confidence vote and a no-confidence in the government vote - the Opposition is now hinting that it is toying with the idea of calling a no-confidence vote in the home affairs minister.

That the Opposition has no confidence in the government is a given and one wonders if this kind of thing will become the order of the day in our House of Representatives. If it does, the public will begin to lose confidence in no-confidence votes very quickly.

Could this prospective third time be the charm for the Opposition? Could this third no-confidence vote, if it is indeed tabled in Parliament, be the one that will finally turn the tide that is dissenting government backbencher Franco Debono to the Opposition’s favour?

After all, he has had the home affairs ministers in his sights for a long time now, and after all that he has said, done and tabled in Parliament over this particular minister’s abilities and performance, it would perhaps be very difficult for him to vote in the minister’s favour if push came to shove.

If such a vote were to be called, would Labour be testing confidence in the home affairs’ minister, or would the Opposition be testing Franco Debono by either seeking to call his bluff or to force him to play the card that the Opposition, any opposition for that matter, would so dearly want him to play?

The shadow minister did not go as far as to have all out called for a no-confidence vote but he repeatedly said that political responsibility must be shouldered for the state of affairs at the prisons and, when questioned, he did not rule it out.

A press conference was called yesterday a day after the courts heard a prison drug-trafficking case, and the opposition was keen to point out how the misdeed had taken place under the current minister’s watch, and that as such there was no passing of the buck this time as had happened in the Bickle trial, when the evidence heard dated back to the previous minister responsible.

But it was later clarified by the ministry that the case had not been one of trafficking in prison but rather of an intercepted consignment concealed in a suspicious timpana (pie) that alert guards had detected.

But over and above this somewhat suspiciously-timed press conference, which seems to have been convened to merely lambast the current minister, there is no doubt that more needs to be done to battle the drug problem at the prisons.

The government’s explanations of testing practices have also been somewhat dubious. Such tests should be made mandatory and not be conducted at the discretion or whim of an official, nor only in certain cases – if we are to have a real picture of substance abuse at the prison and combat it effectively.

There is little doubt that a no-confidence vote in the home affairs minister at this particular juncture would suit the Opposition very nicely indeed – far more, in fact, than the previous votes against the transport minister and the government itself.

In this hand, the same wild card is on the table but this time its suit is the same as the trump.

But if such a vote were to be called and we were to be convinced that it was aimed at more than political exigencies and mileage, we will need some more convincing along such lines – just as we will need more convincing if we are to believe that the substance abuse problem at the prisons is under control.