Parliament pandemonium as sitting is suspended five times

An increasingly hapless Anglu Farrugia had to repeatedly suspend last night’s parliamentary sitting as MPs from both sides hurled insults, jeers and accusations at one another from across the chamber. The commotion began with a dispute over whether the house should urgently debate Sunday’s 200kg cannabis heist from the AFM’s Safi barracks. PN MPs held posters of Byron Camilleri aloft as Bernard Grech made his case for an urgent debate, just before the sitting was suspended for the first time for the speaker to give a ruling. But things really kicked off when they returned, with the news that PN’s motion was turned down sparking a slanging match between MPs from both sides, as Robert Abela tried in vain to deliver a statement. Amidst the chaos, the sitting was suspended again in an effort to calm some of the more excitable MPs. But several MPs were still licking their wounds when the sitting resumed a few minutes later. PN MP Alex Borg demanded that Abela retract his description of him as a “clown.” Abela also retorted that Borg should retract his claim that the government was in cahoots with criminals. And, right on cue, another suspension to give the speaker time to determine who should apologise and what for. What followed was more chaos, littered with a grudging apology from Abela and a stubborn refusal to apologise from Grech, in defiance of the speaker’s orders. But by this point, some three hours into the sitting, hopes for any constructive discussion had gone up in smoke, with the session descending further into shambles, before the speaker eventually called it a night.