PLANES, trains and automobiles. Despite this being the middle of the wining season, those three man-made machines have been commanding a lot of attention over the last few weeks.

It all started with the Ministry of Agriculture using excess funds to acquire a top-of-the-line Porsche Cayenne instead of a more functional pick-up to traverse rural trails and help farmers get their produce to market.

That was followed by someone hacking (is that the correct terminology?) into another person's e-mail to bring us the startling news that the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service is planning to carry out surveillance work with what has been described as a "dolly house" aircraft.

And then there was a Ministry of Transport advertisement seeking "expressions of interest" for a light transit system, which raised the ire of Opposition MP Colm Imbert, who thankfully for all the rest of us numbskulls, knows everything about everything.

Mr Imbert knows a lot about trains, which he should, having spent what is being quoted as more than US$70 million of taxpayers' money for a pre-feasibility study on a rapid rail project, which all came to nothing as the previous Government was ingloriously voted out before a single track could be laid.

It's a pity Mr Imbert couldn't also see into the future and that an unscheduled general election was coming like a speeding train, so he could have saved us from spending all those public funds unnecessarily. Of course, it was not his money and he won't lose any sleep over that slight indiscretion.

But Mr Imbert also knows about planes, so last week Friday when his Opposition colleague Donna Cox informed the nation about the Police Service's newest acquisition in the war against crime, the former minister of Works and Transport gave us the benefit of his vast knowledge in the field of aviation.

And, according to Mr Imbert, the Zenith CH 750 Air Scout being tested by the Police Service, in the person of Deputy Commissioner Jack Ewatski, could not possibly carry out the functions of a proper surveillance aircraft.

Again, it's a pity whichever one of his fellow-ministers was responsible for purchasing the Skyship 600, better known as the blimp, didn't consult Mr Imbert before they spent many more millions for something that was "as useless as tits on a boar hog", as the late Dr Steve Bennett would have said.

Actually, Mr Imbert would have agreed wholeheartedly to expend even more of our money on the blimp, because while he was giving us the benefit of his acumen on the "scandalous" contract for ill-suited aircraft negotiated by the Police Service, he reminded Parliament and all of us plebes that the Skyship 600 was responsible for reducing kidnappings from 100 to five!

What would we do without Mr Imbert safeguarding our funds and keeping us so well informed?

For one thing, we'd have a lot more "pre-feasibility" millions to spend on far more useful ventures.

But the really sad part about all these planes, trains and automobiles is that even though we no longer have Mr Imbert and his colleagues to bleed the treasury dry, their replacements seem to specialise in the art of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Or taking both hands to buy a Porsche.

For don't you think that one of the first people who should have been informed about this new surveillance method being considered by the Police Service was the Prime Minister, who is the head of the National Security Council.

Instead we have to be told that the PM knows nothing about it and she is now calling on the National Security Minister for a report on the matter, who in turn is awaiting information from Police Commissioner Dwayne Gibbs.

In the meantime, Government Ministers have resorted to their usual trick of trying to embarrass the previous administration, with Attorney General Anand Ramlogan leading the charge in the Senate by reminding those responsible for the Special Anti-Crime Unit (SAUTT) that a 22-tonne excavator, which was seized from a citizen in 2006, disappeared from its premises and "the claim against the State right now is over $6 million".

And the AG took a turn on the "plane talk" whistleblower, MP Cox, who he claimed abused her office in the Ministry of National Security by getting prisoners to carry out gardening services at her private residence in Diego Martin.

"Those who live in glass houses, when the glass is so thin that a hard breeze can blow it down, ought not to cast boulders in the direction of the Commissioner of Police and the Deputy Commissioner and the Minister of National Security," Mr Ramlogan told the Senate.

"When they criticise us and make allegations of political corruption, people forget when they were in government what they did."

If it wasn't so funny, it would be a national tragedy, which is what it really is, but thank goodness we have Carnival to distract us from all these accusations and cross-talk that confirm our political leaders haven't got a clue.

Because, outside of Parliament —and here I should thank veteran calypsonian Explainer for the headline lifted from his timeless song— we have another Minister, the one and only Jack Warner, launching a campaign to lobby national support for the death penalty.

Somebody should tell Mr Warner that you have to catch and convict the murderers before you can hang them.

Ah well, maybe Commissioner Gibbs and Deputy Ewatski can apprehend the criminals with the use of their "dolly house" plane.

You see, we don't have to wait until after Carnival for the Laugh Festival.