Pictured above: Remember this? The Labour party billboard  which sprang up in December of last year, mocking the PN slogan 

You have to admit it, this Franco knows how to keep himself in the news (I know you are all sick of hearing his name, but it cannot be avoided).

Just when he was being ridiculed and dismissed for not having the cojones to actually go through with it, he actually went ahead and did it – he voted with the Opposition.

On learning the news yesterday I checked and re-checked the source to make sure it was true (for all I knew it could have been a news item by that rascal over at  Bis-Serjeta, Serjeta biss). But, there it was, completely true.

We were all surprised – admit it, so were you.

I have a hunch Franco went through with it because he could tell that he was rapidly losing his fan base – public opinion is notoriously fickle, glorifying you one minute, and calling you scathing names the next, especially when there’s the delicate matter of, let’s say, the future of the government at stake.

So when he kept dangling the prospect of voting against his own government time after time without ever actually doing it, he was turning into something of a joke.  Mention his name on Facebook and you could hear the collective groan … “oh no, not him again!”

“Doing an FD” (for by now he is so famous he simply goes by his initials, kind of like JR) had become shorthand for someone who promises but never delivers. In the same way that “doing a PBO” has become shorthand for someone who presses the wrong key when sending an email.

But last night this all changed. FD finally put his money where his mouth is, as the saying goes.  Come to think of it, I don’t know how he could have actually done otherwise –  after all, he is the one who has been hammering on and on against Carm Mifsud Bonnici, so how could he have justified abstaining or voting No?

But (facepalm) I forget, this is Franco we’re talking about. The unpredictable maverick who keeps people guessing and Gonzi sweating.

Talk about the start of a long, hot summer.