If there was an award for the best display of double standards, Simon Busuttil would definitely win it hands down. There is no question of Busuttil’s next show of inconsistency. You only have to sit back and wait for the next act. Be warned that the intermission is very short though. You might not even have time to visit the bathroom.

I will go to the trouble of recounting Busuttil’s main acts of late, for the benefit of those who might have snoozed through the show. As an aside, I will say that I do not blame them in the least. Although the actors are accomplished, they fail to make up for the boring predictability of the plot.

  One of the first such acts for Busuttil as Opposition Leader was related to the whistleblower concept. When Manuel Mallia’s driver was involved in an altercation, the PN media somehow managed to obtain the telephone conversations between Mallia, his driver, and the Police Commissioner. The Nationalist Party saw nothing wrong in this breach of data; labelling it as a whitleblower case.

  Yet, when Malta saw the first real case of a whistleblower giving evidence in front of the courts in relation to the ‘work for votes’ under Giovanna Debono’s watch, Busuttil went into a dither. He not only attacked the whistleblower verbally, but proceeded to make a judicial protest in a bid to bully the whistleblower in changing his version. The concept of whistleblower protection was thus thrown from the highest window, simply because it no longer fitted the PN’s agenda.

  Another act of Busuttil’s double standards relating to the courts is also among the latest to grace the stage. In the past weeks we have seen Busuttil almost tear his hair out with indignation at the way judicial appointments are made. Watching him you would be forgiven for thinking that the current government has turned the judiciary topsy-turvy. A PN government, he said, would walk the talk, and make judicial appointments based on the Bonello commission.

  Not once did Busuttil think it pertinent to acknowledge that the procedure of judicial appointments today is the same procedure used by successive PN governments, simply because the same PN governments did not bother for a full 25 years to change the laws governing judicial appointments. He obviously also failed to mention that such proposals for a change in laws were placed under his predecessor’s nose by one of his own MPs, where they remained ignored. What Busuttil also forgot to mention is that the Bonello report was commissioned by the current government, in order to make the changes the previous government had pointedly refused to make.

  Failing to mention the issue of political responsibility would be grossly unfair to Busuttil’s excellent show of double standards. Resignations were an unknown phenomenon during PN governments, and Busuttil seems to have adopted the same dubious principles. He did not ask for the resignation of various Nationalist MPs, despite numerous instances in which they were proven to have acted unethically and perhaps even against the law. Busuttil defended Joe Cassar even when the latter handed his resignation. Giovanna Debono only resigned from the PN Parliamentary group when her husband was arrested and charged in court.

  Yet, at the slightest allegation of unethical behaviour by a Labour Minister or anyone holding a public office within the Labour government, Busuttil almost trips up in his own feet in a rush to demand the resignation of the person in question. To add insult to injury, Busuttil has lately thrown at us a document on good governance. Although the great Mahatma Ghandi preached non-violence, he also believed that one must lead by example. If Ghandi had assisted to Busuttil’s acts of double standards, he might have found his guiding principles to be in conflict.

  Another great show of double standards was made for the benefit of the enivronmental and construction lobbies. After long months of agonising over the land in Żonqor and pandering to green NGOs, Busuttil turned and faced construction magnates with the declaration that exceptional cases for building on ODZ would still be made under a future PN government.

I will not call for an encore, because the show will go on as long as Busuttil struts on stage. Bowing out gracefully does not seem to be in his nature.