This week Parliament re-convened. It felt good to go back to the chamber and debate. The first day, Monday, was somewhat quiet, but by Tuesday things started to warm up.

Marthese Portelli and Mario De Marco presented a motion by the Opposition to debate the traffic chaos in our country. The first PQ of the day (by Kristy Debono) was also related to the Ministry of Traffic, which gave us the perfect way to kick off a debate.

While comments were flying from both sides, the Prime Minister (off microphone) passed a comment that he had no problem with debating the traffic issue “now”. Simon Busuttil overheard him and called his bluff.

This is how we ended up debating the issue in the absence of Joe Mizzi, the minister politically responsible for the chaos. And this is how an egocentric Prime Minister finds it appropriate to debate an important issue off-the-cuff while rendering the minister responsible for the sector completely irrelevant.

Can you imagine the headlines had this happened with Lawrence Gonzi as Prime Minister and Austin Gatt as Minister responsible for transport? Labour’s spin would have been: “Prime Minister shows no confidence in Transport Minister and calls for Parliamentary debate in his absence!”

On Tuesday, Muscat’s message to Joe Mizzi was very clear: with or without you makes little difference. We might even minimise the damage of the debate. Given where you've driven us, where can we go but up?

Could this be the sign of yet another reshuffle in the making? Is the best cabinet in history changing yet again? How much better can it get?

Mind the gap

For the last several weeks I have been writing about the shift in political sentiment. Last Sunday’s Malta Today survey proves this fact in numbers.

Asked which party they will vote for in the coming general election, 32.2% of voters chose the PL and 28.1% chose te PN. This marks the narrowest gap since the 2013 elections. One can definitely say at this point that the PN are on the right track but there is still so much work ahead.

Simon Busuttil is also improving his ratings. This not only augurs well for his leadership but it also reflects his very hard and relentless efforts to make a change to the better. It is through an increase in the team effort that the Opposition will be seen as the alternative government and not just a good opposition.

We cannot just rely on Muscat and his gang to make mistakes. I am sure that Muscat is looking at these numbers closely and will take radical action accordingly, particularly because his main aim is to annihilate the PN from the face of the earth.

Strength in the middle of tragedy

Last Sunday’s tragedy at Paqpaqli Ghall-Istrina has stirred a national debate on the security (or lack thereof) at major crowd-pulling events.

I accompanied Simon Busuttil on his visit to some of the relatives and patients at Mater Dei Hospital on Sunday, followed by a second visit to the ITU on Monday. In difficult moments like these, there are no words to express the agony which each person feels at the tragedy which unfolded at what was meant to be a national feast of solidarity.

We must collectively be grateful to the hard-working Mater Dei medical and paramedical staff, who were on site in no time, assisted by the Red Cross volunteers. Their timely interventions saved precious lives.

Our gratitude goes to all those who worked beyond their call of duty and rose up to the occasion. They are the ones who have been training very hard, for many years, preparing themselves even for an event like this. When it unfortunately happened, they served with dedication and cool professionalism. They are the background heroes of this very tragic story.