I watched the debate on Xarabank between Joseph Muscat and Simon Busuttil. As expected from seasoned politicians, both of them traded ‘punches’, at times scoring, other times missing their opponent.

However, at the end of that TV programme what came across was a Muscat who, at the time of biggest test to his leadership – Panamagate – failed miserably.

There cannot be anybody out there who does not believe that the right course of action for Muscat was to sack outright both Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi when the Panama Papers saga exploded. Yet, both of them retained their posts, one as chief of staff and the other a Cabinet minister.

On the other hand, at the time of the biggest test of his leadership – the db Group saga – Busutill did the right thing. He referred a land deal which to him seemed dubious to the Auditor General for investigation.

Unlike Muscat, Busutill knew what the right thing to do was. He did not let the fact that the db Group was a donor to his party get in the way of doing the honourable thing.

That shows that whereas one cannot trust Muscat’s judgement, since it is not conditioned to always do what is right, one can trust Busuttil’s judgement because his course of action is guided by what is right.