So what if recent comical rumours in the media that various Bulgarian MP’s prefer spending more time in cafes rather than the seat of government are true? What jot of difference can this make to the debate? Aren’t the same old arguments always trotted out regardless?

I mean, when a bill is finally presented, members of the opposition surely scream as usual that they have absolutely no confidence in the particular white paper to hand, the only thing it is good for is to wipe Parliamentary asses. No way did the party have 123 coffees, 41 cognacs and 17 doughnuts in the past half hour, they yell, it’s a classic example of government corruption at work on the figures yet again!

Outrageous claim, retorts a ministerial young gun, especially from a party so gravely uninterested in matters of state that they are always absent. In fact, most of your members have yet to make a maiden speech if I am not mistaken.

Except in the bedrooms of that five-star hotel of course, which is probably where a gaggle of them are engaged right now in a very different kind of current affair, chuckles an Independent MP at the same time as a deaf old boy dozing at the back utters, gravy, steak? Where, who’s buying?

Wrong, goes another member, I bet they are all playing Russian roulette with what remains of the gas crisis emergency funds in that casino over there.

At once the cheeky independent points in another direction and mutters, apart from those two party animals who I have just seen stagger out of that nightclub, that is.
The opposition MP starts desperately waving his hand on a third bearing and declares what a load of rubbish, he can see all his blessed, pious colleagues ambling out of the cathedral as he speaks.

Only if all your members now suddenly come from Osaka, mate, laughs the eagle-eyed independent member at him, that’s a bunch of Japanese tourists if I am not mistaken.
Oh, oh...is it, moans the harassed opposition MP. A quick change of tack is needed. Well,  who gave permission for so many temptations around Parliament anyhow;  the casino for one, those nightclubs, that vast hotel, a huge advert for Scottish firewater, and not to mention the unmentionable, the go-go bar a little up the street, he shrieks.

I mean, what did the government think would happen, especially with so much EU cash floating around Sofia?!? We are all human, after all. Hey, hey hang on minister, where are you going in such a rush.....

The junior minister sniggers as he races for the door before anyone can cotton on to the government’s clever ploy. Who do you think gave permission, boyo? It’s called politics. And scarpering outside the wily bureaucrat shouts over his shoulder, another swift one on me anyone? There is a far more important debate going on across the street which the PM doesn’t want them all stampeding into. A flurry of hands eagerly rise in the air. Waitress! Another landslide vote for the government it is. Nazdrave!