I could just as easily have titled this piece "Of Him and Her", I suppose.

In his efforts to deflect the public's attention from the Cafe Premier scandal, Premier Joseph Muscat providentially found a crutch in MaltaToday's coincidental and serendipitous expose' of alleged shennanigans in Gozo.   Obviously, and unsurprisingly, just as soon as the story broke, Premier Muscat climbed snappily into the saddle of his high horse and started mouthing platitudes about political accountability and "what was Simon Busuttil going to do about this, now, huh?" 

What Premier Muscat doesn't seem to quite grasp, and in this he's pulling quite a few other people along with him who should know better, is that the Nationalist Party paid the political price of the electorate's perception of its governance back two years ago, now.   Frankly, this obsession with looking back in anger at what the PN in Government did, both on the part of Premier Muscat and on the part of the less-than-critical factions in the media, is wearing a bit thin.

That said, it may be said that it has become incumbent on the Nationalist Party to take a position that allows it to occupy  the higher moral ground, a position it always took and beat the Labour Party to, consistently, although the popular perception, fanned by sections of the media, is that it was slipping in this in the recent past.

Taking the higher moral ground, however, does not include condemning someone only on the basis of media reports, unsubstantiated as they are by the National Audit Office or by Police findings.  

Given that Giovanna Debono has denied the accusations and not chosen to resign or move aside or whatever until such time as her position is vindicated, it is not really open to her party's leader to ask her to resign at this point - he will do so if and as soon as it becomes clear that such vindication is not on the cards, as he has already demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt in other cases.

But not for now, for now the Police can do their job and if and when the facts come out, decisions will be taken.

And Premier Muscat can tweet about "secs" all he likes: the rule of common decency requires that if the target of accusations chooses to deny them, then one waits for a reasonable time until they are proved or otherwise.     Remember, this is not a Minister who has to be squeaky clean: all Giovanna Debono is now is a party member and there's nothing to suspend her from, certainly not to the extent that allowing due process to take place needs to be over-ridden with the slavering urgency these things take on whenever the problem is at the Nationalist's door.

If this were not the case, why hasn't Premier Joseph Muscat suspended Minister (where is he by the way?) Konrad Mizzi, who is reported to have (allegedly) directed that Socar be given direct orders that resulted in much dosh going their way? 

The Government has explained why what the PN described as a very smelly case is not stinking to high heaven after all, which means that Premier Muscat won't be suspending Mizzi any time soon.    What's sauce for this particular goose must therefore become sauce for that gander, or else Premier Muscat will have to suspend himself, too.

But he and Mizzi will be resigning soon anyway, because the power-station to which they nailed their colours hasn't been built: just don't hold your breath waiting for that.