MY willy is bigger than YOUR willy… so there!

OK, a small clarification before moving on to the "willies" part. When I sat down to write an article today, I imagined my biggest dilemma would be choosing between the many, astounding and occasionally outrageous issues to have disrupted and derailed the election campaign in the past few weeks - to the point that the election itself suddenly seems an unwanted intrusion upon much more urgent matters.

Well, as it happened my dilemma was resolved almost without any say on my part. There is a television in the office these days (note: to be frank I still haven't worked out whether it has always been there, but never switched on... or installed recently just for the election campaign). Either way, it's on at the moment: and Paul Borg Olivier's voice has just come floating to my ears above the office hubbub, to inform me that... the Nationalist Party's female candidates have more 'substance' than the Labour Party's female candidates.

What? Oh no, he wasn't joking at all. Dead serious, in point of fact. As for what 'substance' he had in mind, I'm afraid he didn't specify. I assume it couldn't possibly have been 'oestrogen'... though I'll spare you my reasons for that deduction.

In any case: at this point I am infinitely more concerned with another substance altogether; that which may or may not exist between Paul Borg Olivier's ears. I have, after all, heard my fair share of astonishing clangers in all my years writing about Maltese politics. But this? This is simply ridiculous.

And it turns out that this bold claim was not (as I at first assumed) a mere slip of the tongue, or the PBO version of a 'blonde moment' that was taken out of context and exploited for purely political reasons.

On the contrary: it was originally a Facebook status update... which also means that Borg Olivier had all the time in the world to think the implications through before hitting the 'Enter' button.

And he was  given every opportunity to at least clarify his position at the same press conference, too. Still, he stuck to his guns, insisting that: yes, Nationalist women are automatically superior to Labour women, for no other reason than the fact that... well, they're Nationalist. What else?

I am sorry to have to raise this question at this stage, but... how old is Paul Borg Olivier, anyway? I seem to remember him attending Sixth Form at the same school as myself: which means he cannot conceivably be younger than 40.

Yet there he was, on live TV, sounding exactly like a 13-year-old boy who's just discovered that his pecker serves more uses than mere urination. You may be familiar with the sort of mentality I'm talking about here - or at least, you'd recognise it instantly if:

a) you've ever possessed a pecker of your own, and;

b) you were once 13 years old, and lived to tell to tale.

For the rest of you out there, this mentality can be transcribed in the following, ultra-mature sentence: "MY willy is bigger than YOUR willy... nya-nya-nya-nyah-nya!"

How different is that sentiment from the expressed by Paul Borg Olivier last Friday? Well, to me it sounded exactly like: "OUR women have more substance than YOUR women, nya-nya-nya-nyah-nya!"

OK, I won't bother asking Paul Borg Olivier why he happens to think that Theresa Comodini Cachia and/or Claudette Pace have more 'substance' than Deborah Schembri and/or Marlene Mizzi - to name but two on either side.

Nor will I ask him to list the past achievements of PN female candidates, and to weigh them against, say, winning a divorce referendum practically single-handedly, and against all odds.

But there is a small question Paul Borg Olivier will one day have to confront, and it concerns his own cognitive faculties. The real trouble here is that the PN secretary-general was not merely expressing an odd little personal prejudice of his own. On the contrary, he was performing to a detailed script that underpins the entire Nationalist Party re-election campaign strategy.... and arguably encompasses the entire PN ethos, at least in the form to which this ethos has degenerated under the party's present leadership over the past 10 years.

If you haven't already identified this recipe for mental illness for yourselves, this is how it usually works in practice.

Repeat after me: "Nationalists are automatically 'better' than Labourites in absolutely every aspect... not for any merit that they actually possess, but simply because they are Nationalists, while the others are Labour, FULL-STOP."

And now learn this little sentence by heart: "People will always believe whatever the Nationalist Party says, no matter how nonsensical, ridiculous or obviously untrue that may be... not because they are in any way convinced by the PN's superior logic or argumentation, but merely on the assumption that the Nationalists are automatically right about absolutely everything, while everyone who disagrees is automatically wrong."

And now for a small disclaimer. I have never studied psychoanalysis in any formal way; but in the years I've been alive in this bad wicked world I have encountered occasional symptoms of psychosis here and there. It's a subject that intrigues me, and which I have read around for years in a non-professional capacity.

I obviously don't claim to be an expert... but I do recognize delusion when I see it. And this sort of mentality is clearly delusional: it departs from a totally illogical and untenable premise, and much more seriously it proceeds to break down the barriers between what is 'real', and what is merely 'desirable'.

And that, I fear, is just the beginning. Up until fairly recently I assumed that this particular brand of delusion was limited to only in a few PN exponents here and there... you know, the obvious ones whose public profiles have clearly gone to their heads, .

But as the campaign unfolds, it is fast becoming evident that... well, no. It's not just one or two clearly deranged individuals here and there, but the entire party that has been contaminated with the same, extraordinary mental pathology.

I hate to say it, but... people in that party really do think like Paul Borg Olivier talks, you know. In their heart of hearts they really do believe in their own fabricated credo of 'inherent PN superiority'... for all the world as though 'substance' were a quality that can somehow be imparted to individuals merely by association with the PN.

In other words, if a person publicly aligns him or herself with the Nationalist Party, this in itself will be received as a mark of superior intelligence, breeding, culture, education, and many other qualities beside.

I don't know about you, but this sort of attitude truly frightens me. I mean that literally: it's the sort of thing that makes me want to switch on all the lights and search for hidden monsters under the bed.

And of course, part of what makes it so scary is that the same people who genuinely and truly believe this blatant nonsense, also wield very real power over others in our country.

One example I will not forget in a hurry is the PN's reaction to Cyrus Engerer's defection to Labour in 2011.

On the surface, Engerer had resigned from the PN in protest at the Prime Minister's vote against divorce in Parliament (and this time round, let's not get bogged down in whether Gonzi was right or wrong on that front - I myself was every bit as shocked and nauseated as Engerer, but obviously others were not).

Immediately we were confronted with two grisly illustrations of why delusion among the powerful is so goddamn dangerous. Within a few days of the defection, Cyrus Engerer's father was arrested for an alleged crime... a crime that had been studiously ignored for as long as his son had played ball with the PN.

The second indication was the instant change in attitude towards Cyrus Engerer himself. Formerly described as a "star" and "the future of the PN" by Daphne Caruana Galizia, the same person was from one second to the next demoted to the status of an obsucure species of insect.

He was lampooned and held up to public ridicule for the simple reason that he no longer militated within the PN, and therefore no longer benefited from the 'substance' bestowed upon him through mere association with that party.

Again, the scary thing is that the same people who had praised him to the skies just a few weeks earlier, proceeded to lead the lynch-mob theselves. And this can only mean one thing: just as these people had believed their own earlier words of praise, they now believed the complete opposite with equal fervour, and without even noticing the blatant contradiction.

The truth, of course, is that people do not 'change' in any substantive way just because they cease to be Nationalist. To argue otherwise is every bit as absurd as to expect a person's physical appearance to also change upon defection to Labour.  And oh look! That is exactly what Simon Busuttil added to this entire collage of insanity this week, with an extraordinary little outburst of his own.

It seems that it's not enough for Simon that his precious PN is right about everything; or that its people are automatically more intelligent, more honest, more reliable, more European and ultimately more human than their Labour counterparts.

No, they have to be better-looking, too... which is why Deborah Schembri has 'the face of a Nationalist' (as opposed, presumably, to people like Joe Debono Grech, who have the face of... something else).

Yet no matter how utterly demented the thought processes behind such crazed declarations may be, the same clearly twisted perspective now underpins every single aspect of the Nationalist campaign to date.

It lies at the heart of the endless, empty boasts about how the PN "has always been on the right side of history"... when it most definitely has nor. It is the same force that motivates the instant demonisation of people from all works of life, whose only crime is failure to share the warped opinions of blatantly brainsick bloggers.

Now Simon Busuttil and Paul Borg Olivier have started playing to the same tune... and this tune is itself the inevitable consequence of that  ill-conceived 'GonziPN' motif, that had first set the party onto the path of irrational megalomania five years ago.

Meanwhile: do I need to remind these same people of the truly shocking irony in their own metamorphosis?

Probably not, but here goes anyway. The last time I saw institutionalised mental illness of this proportion and to this degree was around 25 years ago... specifically, during the last few months of the Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici administration, at a time when the lunatics had very clearly taken over the asylum.

Then as now we had a coterie of people who genuinely believed in their own intrinsic superiority - that they could do no wrong, and that anyone who opposed them simply had to be stopped at all costs, etc.

Does it matter that the lunatics running today's asylum happen to be Nationalist instead of Labour? Not to me it doesn't. And does it make a jot of difference that today's thugs no longer beat us up at mass meetings, but instead take pleasure in spreading lies, rumours and filth about their party's 'enemies' and their family members (and occasionally their dearly departed, too) on their ghastly blogs?

I fail to see why it should. But then again I fail to see a lot of other things too, so there you go...