They should have continued to drink cappuccinos

Darling, let's forget the riots

David Cameron, the British PM, cut short his Tuscan holiday to return to a rioting, not so beautiful, London town. According to the BBC, one of his first moves was "to meet officers in the Met Police's Gold command".

Shock, horror. How dare he demean Westminster, the mother of all parliaments, in this way? Didn't the British prime minister know that he cannot interfere at all in police business? Didn't he learn anything from the fracas caused by the phone call Edgar Galea Curmi made to the Police Commissioner?

Lawrence Gonzi at least had the decency to delegate the dirty work to the head of his secretariat. And the latter exercised perfectly pitched discretion by calling, rather than meeting the police. Cameron, by contrast, dirtied his own hands. Shame, shame, and more shame. The country which invented parliamentary democracy as we know it, is now busy destroying it.

Cameron should have done the right thing - left the riots, the burning and looting completely in the hands of London's Metropolitan Police. While he and his wife continued to sip cappuccinos under Tuscan archways.

Let's hope that this will be the last time that Malta has to waste it's time teaching a British prime minister where to draw the line been his office and that of the police commissioner.