There is a legal maxim that if something has four legs (one at each corner), a tail at one end (that wags) and barks from the other end, then it's a dog, however much you call it a parrot.

Consequently, when a senior politician meets a businessman just before an election as a result of which the senior politician is elected Prime Minister, and then the newly-elected Prime Minister's government almost immediately makes a really rather sweet deal with the businessman, saving the latter's bacon ever so conveniently, who can blame anyone for calling the parrot a dog?

And if it comes to light that the newly-elected Prime Minister was directly involved in the deal being made, where would that leave aforesaid Prime Minister?

You will notice that I am using what the grammarians call 'the conditional sense', signalled by the words "if" and "would".

If, on the other hand, I were to write that it has come to light that the Prime Minister was involved, rather than leaving the matter in some doubt, I would lay myself open to a libel claim, you see.

I don't have a Swiss bank account to make good for the damages if proof is brought that the Prime Minister was not, actually, involved in the deal being made whereby the Cafe' Premier operators were handed a substantial chunk of your and my money in return for them handing back the premises they weren't using to its owners, the government.

I wasn't present at any of the meetings that Joseph Muscat had with the chap concerned, you see, so I can't state as fact that pre-election deals were made and that post-election there was a settlement of accounts.

The only people who know what was said are Joseph Muscat and the entrepreneur who was waltzing with him.

And I'm not Alfred Sant, cravenly and conveniently hiding behind a "moral conviction" to say what I like: all I can say is that if, but only if, deals were made and promises kept, then Joseph Muscat is not in a good place at all.

He's in even less of a good place if what I read today (note the word "if" again, please) is true, that a private concern was ready to give the same sort of deal to the Cafe' Premier guys but they were pushed aside in favour of Government money (that's yours and my money) being used.

The Prime Minister tweeted recently that there's a difference between Austin Gatt and Michael Falzon and Ninu Zammit.

True, for all sorts of reasons, one of which being that Austin Gatt had, in fact, declared his interest in a Swiss bank account years previously, while Ninu Zammit had to make a deal with Joseph Muscat's government to be able to legitimise his stash.

It would now be justifiable for me, for instance, to tweet something of the lines of there being quite a difference between Tonio Fenech, say, and Joseph Muscat. Fenech was given clock that was worth, at best, a few hundred euro.

We don't know that Muscat was given anything in connection with the Cafe' Premier deal, and we know even less how much that would have been, if (again, note the "if") anything had been given.

I hope that Muscat got nothing out of it, except presumably the undying gratitude of the entrepreneurs whose skin was left intact, but only he and his conscience know for sure, I wasn't in on the meetings that seem to have taken place.

All I know is that when I remember Muscat's biting aphorism about smelling the coffee, I can't help laughing out loud, more than slightly cynically.

And wondering how much the coffee he was smelling has cost you and me.

Oh well, maybe everyone is barking up the wrong tree, Auditor-General and all.

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