Joseph Muscat’s call to the faithful to demonstrate in Valletta is truly amazing and ironic.

It is amazing since it would seem that Muscat has no other arguments left to counter the stories that are emerging from the Daphne Project. His handling of the Panama Papers scandal and what followed have now come back to haunt him.

Two years ago, when those investigative reports exploded, Muscat first tried to ignore them, then to pass them on as nothing exceptional, then, realising they were not going to die, he marshalled all the considerable media, including social media, at his disposal to spread fake news and demonise Daphne Caruana Galizia and her blog. In other words, to control the narrative.

His problem now is that her investigations have been taken over by the best global media, which carried on where she left off. Of course, since the investigations are being carried out mainly by the foreign media, Muscat cannot control the narrative nor can he say all the reports are PN-fed inventions.

So what does Muscat do? He marshals his storm troopers to a show of force. Normally, such actions are associated with the likes of the despots of Turkey, North Korea, Russia, China and Azerbaijan, to mention a few. But certainly not a democratic government and an EU one to boot.

The May 1 show of force called by Muscat is ironic because he wanted to march his storm troopers in Valletta. But, wait a minute, is Valletta at present not one of the two cities chosen to represent European culture? Surely, European culture has nothing to do with mob rule or a show of force.

Muscat must be truly cornered.