Premier Joseph Muscat, late on Wednesday evening, was reported to have said that he gets it. All that he gets, it need hardly be said, is the extent to which Panamagate is harming his party with the electorate. Premier Muscat, it is now ultra clear, only thinks in terms of what wins, or won, him votes.

Incidentally, for those who don't get it, he's known as Premier Muscat because one of his first Prime Ministerial acts was to approve - from his private email, if memory serves - a handy four million euro in favour of the owners of Cafe' Premier in Valletta.

Premier Muscat doesn't get, or chooses not to, that it is simply not on for his Super Minister and for his Chief of Staff and for his Super Minister's state-employed wife to be involved in a complex structure of Panamanian companies, a New Zealand Trust, "almost-opened" Dubai and Panama bank accounts and British Virgin Island companies, just to mention the highlights of the legal and financial advice these people seem to have been given by Mossack Fonseca and Nexia BT.

Premier Muscat doesn't get, or chooses not to, that it is simply not on for his Super Minister and for his Chief of Staff to be involved in "almost-opened" Dubai and Panamanian bank accounts being routinely "almost opened" to receive brokerage and consultancy income.

Premier Muscat doesn't get, or chooses not to, that it is simply not on for Ministers, Super or otherwise, and Chiefs of Staff operating within the Office of the Prime Minister to have consultancies on the side or to receive brokerage fees. Nor does he get that they are not supposed to set up financial vehicles in jurisdictions not exactly renowned for their openness and transparency, especially not citing "consultancy and brokerage fees" as the fuel on which these vehicles would run.

Premier Muscat doesn't get, or chooses not, that relying on an audit process by "a world renowned firm" (without telling us which) is hogwash, pure and simple, to use his own inelegant phrase. If - hypothetically speaking - no consultancy or brokerage fees have (yet) been received, or if - again hypothetically speaking - any such fees have been temporarily parked elsewhere, what is an audit going to find?

Sweet bugger all, that's what.

I, on the other hand, freely confess to not getting it.

I don't get, for instance, why the Honourable Dr Konrad Mizzi needed to set up a trust in New Zealand to take ownership of a company in Panama that was only going to receive into it a population of assets that is - relatively speaking - derisory.

I don't get why Mizzi keeps saying that he's done nothing wrong and that all he did was some reasonable financial planning for his family "as the Trust Deed shows". The Trust Deed, if my reading of it is accurate, is entirely revocable or changeable, and it would be simplicity itself for it to be messed around with to suit Mizzi's plans as his assets multiply and his needs change.

I don't get why Mizzi is so darn smug about how the Panama Papers vindicate him. It is patently obvious that it has now been confirmed, beyond reasonable doubt, to borrow a concept from criminal law, that what was alleged about him (see above) is true.

I don't get, either, why Premier Muscat's Chief of Staff, who we are told had relinquished any control over his business empire to take on the role, and who apparently already had a nifty set-up in BVI anyway, needed the hassle of a Panama company.

I doubt a businessman with Mr Schembri's acumen sets up companies simply for the pleasure of it, so what gives? I don't get it.

From the reports that are trickling out, the older generation within Premier Muscat's Cabinet are pretty much disgusted with this whole thing, though they haven't the anatomical attributes needed to make themselves clear.

On the other hand, the younger set are rallying dutifully to the cause and sticking up for their comrade in arms, Super Minister Konrad Mizzi. I was going to say that I don't get this, but I do, as you will if you think about it for a few seconds.

What I do get, in spades, is one, simple, stark fact.

When Premier Muscat, after he does his electoral arithmetic, decides that despite the inherent perils (for him) it's time to chuck Mizzi and Schembri to the wolves, we the people are going to react with one, simple, stark retort.

And that is that it's way too little, way too late, mate, you're in the same rancid soup yourself.

To put it differently, I am morally convinced, to use one of Doctor Alfred Sant's mealy-mouthed favourites, that if I were to smell an almighty stench of corruption on Sunday when I take a stroll up to Castille Square, I am going to suspect that I know precisely where it's wafting from.