I wrote earlier how Robert Abela does not volunteer for the rack to assure us he’s telling us the whole truth. Political leaders who want to persuade us of their sincerity will sit with journalists who will look like they’re challenging them and giving them a hard time. The gamble does not always pay off especially when the politician actually has something to hide. For every Richard Nixon there’s a David Frost out there.

Robert Abela is not going to risk shedding a tear in a tough interviewing session. Even if he was looking to show us he can do well under pressure, there aren’t many Jeremy Paxmans, Tim Sebastians and Zeinab Badawis in our midst.

To be fair, most people of average intelligence should be able to acquit themselves decently under the slow burning salamander of Reno Bugeja. And one would expect our prime minister to have something like above average intelligence.

But the extent to which Robert Abela goes to avoid having to deal with an unrehearsed question is extreme even for him. He’s worse than your garden variety coward.

On One TV yesterday he did not trust even a Labour Party employee to ask him questions. Now understand, a ‘journalist’ working for One, gets their salary paid by the party of which Robert Abela is leader. The likelihood that they might actually put their boss in an uncomfortable position is close to nothing.

But yesterday Robert Abela took an assistant of his to ask him questions. She’s more of a doe-eyed platonic Lewinski than an assistant. This is how she gushes about Robert Abela on her Instagram. It really is quite embarrassing. For her. But she wouldn’t know it.

The body language on the image she posted on her Instagram would give Sigmund Freud a sleepless weekend.

Her Facebook profile says Maria Ellul is an “ex” One TV “journalist”. She is now a member of Robert Abela’s private secretariat. She’s his staffer.

Can you imagine Christiane Amanpour putting a heart emoji next to her interviewee’s name after squeezing the last drop of blood out of Bashar al Assad?

And it’s embarrassing for us that our prime minister chooses an albino rabbit with blunted incisors who has not outgrown her teenage infatuation with the orange Mr Clean on the detergent bottle, to ‘interview’ him about the most important political decision taken by a Maltese prime minister since Ġorġ Borg Olivier got up one morning and said it would be fine for us to go it alone.

Pathetic.