The civil-service ‘spying’ story continues to be revealed with more damning e-mails being published in L-Orizzont and It-Torċa.

Nationalist MP and former finance minister Tonio Fenech had mentioned the former director general of the National Statistics Office, Michael Pace Ross, as having been in contact with him about issues connected with the NSO. Pace Ross denied what Fenech had said about him during Brian Hansford’s discussion programme, Realtà.

What I found to be the most interesting thing said by Pace Ross was that he knew what the regulations governing his managerial position said about confidentiality. Hence, he made it plain that, had he done what Fenech alleged, he would have been breaking the oath of office, something which he would never think of doing.

This rubbishes Fenech’s claim that the three individuals mentioned in this case have done nothing wrong.

While Fenech has since repeated what he had said on Realtà about Pace Ross, it is quite obvious that the PN, knowing that electoral defeat was 100 per cent certain in March 2013, made sure they would have their own people in strategic positions in the civil service who would keep them informed about sensitive developments that would help the Opposition in its criticism of the government.

I am convinced that there are similar groups operating ‘behind the enemy lines’, to use a wartime term.

No wonder the PN grasps at each straw which they hope will divert attention from this latest, extremely serious scandal, which does not involve just someone ‘close’ to the PN but, indeed, the Opposition itself.