I promised, on my FaceBook page, that I wasn't going to blog about the surreal contributions from Government members in the debate in the House last Monday. Being a man of my word, I won't, except to remark on the Loyal Members of the Government's crass obsequiousness. Their fervent desire to suck up to their Great Leader led them into the temptation, to which they succumbed as a man and woman, to spew paean after paean of eulogistic twaddle.
They owed - and continue to owe - fealty to Premier Joe and nothing shall stand in the way of their making this crystal clear to one and all.
That's as may be, they have now stood up and been counted, or pressed the button or whatever they did to vote in favour of Owen Bonnici's gushing amendment. I hope they feel a warm glow of accomplishment, but I'm sure they'll forgive the rest of us, out here in the real world, for not being overly impressed.
Moving on, Premier Joe might have pretended to feel satisfied that his troops rallied to the cause, though if he thinks that this is an end to his trials and tribulations about Panama and points East and West, then he has another think coming, as they say. Note that I wrote "his" not Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri's, we're way beyond just them being in the firing line.
When I saw the story in some other section of the media about Mario Demarco's invoice issues, regurgitated with gusto since then by Premier Joe's apologists, my first reaction was that "Mario has to go", at least temporarily.
That was before his clarifications became public.
The position, now that it has been explained, is not as it first seemed. Whether the people who count at Times of Malta have issues is something for them, and them alone (despite the Trolls & Minions on Premier Joe's side seeming to think that it's even remotely relevant to the price of eggs) but politically speaking, I can't for the life of me see what is so heinous about Demarco's position.
Look at the facts, such as they are. He engaged a contractor to do some work. In the manner of these things, the works took their own sweet time to complete, in fact years. It's not beyond the bounds of credibility that the contractor wasn't in a great hurry to be paid and preferred to settle at the end, according to what Dr Demarco tells us.
Perhaps, with the benefit of hindsight, this should not have been allowed to happen, but what with the complications of completing VAT Returns (on the contractor's side) and any eventual disputes as to the quality and extent of work, it's sometimes way more convenient to close everything on project closure, especially if it's a relatively small job.
Looking at it from the Trolls & Minions' point of view, however, the main issue seems to be that the contractor involved was one of the people mentioned in the Panama Papers, along with Keith Schembri. Their logic seems to be, if logic can be attributed to their thought processes, that if being mentioned in the Panama Papers is bad, then being a client of someone thus mentioned is also bad.
I struggle with this, frankly.
So far, all we've heard from Premier Joe's T&M's is a resounding silence when it comes to condemning Mizzi and Schembri, whose appearance in the PPs is direct and unequivocal. But when it comes to having dealings with someone who also appears in the PPs is concerned, without being mentioned in the said PPs, then "Shock, Horror, the sky is falling" and they all run around and scream and shout, rather like headless chickens.
Such is life, when rats are cornered, they act this way, I suppose.
What is worthy of some comment, within the political context, is the way the story saw the light of day, so conveniently for Premier Joe, just before "The Debate". One has to raise an eyebrow the serendipity of the scoop, especially if you chuck into the mix the pretty obvious source of it.
Certain media houses are intimately linked with the political parties, as we all know, and for them, timing to achieve political impact is an important consideration.
Other houses, however, are vehement in the self-proclamation of their independence, sometimes even going for the "a plague on both your houses" style of reportage and comment.
This scoop wasn't carried by the parties' media houses.
Do your own math.