Referring to the Panama Papers fallout, in which a top minister was embroiled, Premier Joseph Muscat said he was listening to the people.

Another top minister, Edward Scicluna, in his most elegant way, seemed to throw down the gauntlet to Muscat in Parliament.

Some 24 hours earlier, during a Cabinet meeting, reports emerged that a number of ministers made it plain they wanted Konrad Mizzi to go.

No, Muscat is not listening to the people. He still has the uproar ringing in his ears of the near-mutiny at the Cabinet meeting. Muscat made the biggest mistake of his political career: he managed to antagonise George Vella who gave his life to the party. Muscat must really be blinded by his self-grandeur if he thinks this man, who has never had a hint of an accusation of sleaze levelled at him, would stand by and let a recent upstart lead the party to wrack and ruin.

Did Muscat really expect to be let off the hook for what he has been doing over the past three years? Muscat should listen to what Vella has to say. He’s already said this is his last stint in politics. He’s no longer a sycophant, the likes of which you have layered yourself with.

He’s not going to stand on the sidelines in his retirement, kicking himself for not trying to salvage what he could of the fragments of a once-glorious party that has been brought to such depths of disrepute by a band of upstarts.

If there’s one thing many will credit Muscat with, it is his survival instinct. Against all odds, perhaps. If he doesn’t listen to Vella his head’s on the block.

No, Muscat is not listening to the people. He is listening to the tinnitus that resulted from that Cabinet meeting.