Bukit Gelugor MP Karpal Singh makes a mistake of fact in parliament and the prime minister moves for him to be referred to the Parliamentary Privileges Committee for allegedly misleading the House.

This mistake was nothing more than a reference to a wrong source for the more important issue of substance. For in substance, Karpal was right.

Now, whether or not the erring on this 'substance' that Karpal seemed so taken up by is in itself significant or relevant is another matter altogether. I would think it is more irrelevant.

Indeed, it took almost two weeks before the speaker of the House decides that he now has a photo opportunity to make it to the front pages of national media and issues a letter to Karpal asking him to explain himself.

It does not matter that Karpal had explained himself a whole lot earlier.

Since this is now fast becoming one of the most important national events and if not checked soon a catastrophe of national proportions might ensue, so it takes the prime minister himself to move a motion of censure that now sees the privileges committee in action.

Meanwhile, the government has admitted that the prime minister was indeed wrong both in substance and in fact when he responded in parliament to a question over Anwar Ibrahim's 1999 police report over Perwaja.

This raises a question of the credibility of at least three different people or institutions.

Firstly, we have to assume that all are agreed that the demeanor in both the instances referred to here are similar in nature. That being the case, can we now hope to see:

1) The speaker issuing a letter to the prime minister to explain himself for having misled the house?

2) The prime minister moving a motion against himself to have him investigated by the Parliamentary Privileges Committee for allegedly misleading the House?

3) The privileges committee moving on its own to dismiss itself as not having the credibility to proceed with the Karpal complaint in the light of an even more serious breach before them now?

Of course, we can all understand that in Bolehland it is also possible for the privileges committee to tell themselves that when you sit on this committee you must be blind and deaf to everything else that is not brought to you through the proper channels.

I would bet that nothing less than the sky falling down on us would happen before Pak Lah does the right thing and issues the necessary apologies. No doubt this whole episode about Karpal can be seen as nothing more than an exercise by the new PM with the resounding mandate telling the opposition how to behave.

What's even worse it that the PM's blunder has happened before the privileges committee made a decision on Karpal. From here on, I guess it's going to become a major face-saving exercise and that is the kind of conclusion we must all expect to see.

On another note, the fact that Kota Baru MP Zaid Ibrahim is part of the privileges committee tells me another story altogether.

Surely it must go against his every sense to find Karpal guilty of what he is being investigated for by the committee. On the other hand, how will his mates in Umno and BN view him if the committee finds Karpal not guilty?

Will this whole affair put paid to his hopes of contesting the Umno vice-presidency? But maybe the admission by the government of the PM's misleading answer in Parliament is Zaid's saving grace?

I now wonder if Karpal's censure is really no more than Umno politics and a necessary tool to weed out those who promise to be a nuisance to a wonderful party!