Robert Musumeci, who is now formally advising the government not only about ODZ deve­lopments and the ‘legitimate expectation’ people are supposed to have to do with their property as they please, but also about how our democracy is supposed to be reformed, has shifted from his campaign tagged #galizia­barra to a campaign against the hate that he says motivates criticism of Keith Schembri.

Jason Micallef, condemned by the world’s literary community and boycotted by his predecessor and successors as curators of Capi­tal of Culture programmes for his relentless vilification campaign against Daphne Caruana Galizia, is also advising us to reflect and pause on the language of criticism.

The tide of attack is realigning in defence. The game is shifting. Schembri is shielding himself and he’s putting in front of him bullet fodder, including, incredibly, the Prime Minister.

Last Monday, Joseph Muscat stood in Parliament to deny accusations about his chief of staff’s banking that I had published on my website not two hours earlier. He denied the accusations cate­gori­cally in what must have been immutable confidence of complete familiarity with his office wife’s banking acrobatics.

Given what the Panama Papers revealed about Schembri’s banking – and I’m not just talking about the Mossack Fonseca debacle – Muscat must have the confidence in his assistant that a trusting business partner would have in his associate. The Panama Papers revealed Schembri’s ownership of Colson, a British Virgin Islands company, hidden under layers of ownership so that its real owner is never really known. Unless pesky journalists uncover it. Muscat ex­pressed no shock at the time. He said his assistant was a successful businessman and that is what successful businessmen do; they set up companies all over the world that do nothing except file piles of papers with signatures of people never met and never known.

Muscat himself worked in financial services in the only real job he ever held in his life, so one must presume he understands what these brass plate companies are really for. But he relies on the fact that since his mother never understood what he does, most other people will simply be impressed with Schembri’s ability to have businesses in coconut islands.

The fact that he was fully briefed of Schembri’s ins and outs before the Panama leaks is backed up by the confidence with which Muscat stood up in Parliament last week to deny details of what was paid into those structures.

He assumes his assistant told him everything. He assumes his office wife is loyal. He assumes his business partner will never betray his trust.

So he did Schembri’s bidding and stood right in front of the bullet, assuming it was hollow.

It isn’t.

Not that popular indifference, a pathological inability to feel embarrassment, and supreme self-confidence will stop Muscat and his government from wearing this umpteenth inconve­nience down.

We witnessed a very similar situation when the Panama companies were first announced by Caruana Galizia. They were denied until they were proven.

Then when Schembri’s Pilatus account and moneys were an­nounced by Simon Busuttil. They were denied until they were proven.

Then the contracted and unexplained income from 17 Black. They were denied until they were proven.

He needs to answer how he gets his bank to allow itself to be exposed to Kasco Group to the tune of €7,000,000

Lie after lie after lie. And getting away with lying over and over again fills them with confidence that the next lie will also be consumed en­thusiastically by their supporters.

What has really happened here is that the basic rules of right and wrong have been flipped around. Criticising corruption is branded as ‘hate’.

What has really happened here is that the basic rules of right and wrong have been flipped around. Criticising corruption is branded as ‘hate’. I feel no hate for Schembri. That does not mean I feel love.

It means that my anger, my frustration and my indignation are not the heirs of emotional frenzy and tribal prejudice. It means they are the natural consequence of my rational objection to corruption.

I underlined last week that the facts as I know them are that Schembri received substantial payments in January 2015 that his handlers designated as ‘new funds’ but about which they never sought to verify their provenance.

That does not mean I know the provenance. It means that a person in public office, engaged in the most obscure dealings behind closed doors that have been found to be rotten, disadvantageous and corrupt, must, whether they like it or not, give account of their personal finances.

The fact he was in Baku in a politicians-only meeting, where behind everyone’s back a heavily redacted contract with Azerbaijan was signed that we now know is costing consumers $40 million of excess in electricity bills per year (that’s some €300 on average per household per year), just five weeks before he got this money, raises legitimate questions.

Questions he needs to answer.

As he needs to answer why he has a worldwide network of offshore companies when his group of companies barely made a yearly average of €50,000 of profit per year since 2010.

He needs to answer how he gets his bank, Bank of Valletta, to allow itself to be exposed to Kasco Group to the tune of €7,000,000 and allow him to lend €2,500,000 to an undisclosed third party in an unsecured loan.

He needs to answer how a few weeks before the 2017 election the government granted his company 5,000 square metres of industrial land at Bulebel for 65 years, allowing half of it to be passed on to a subsidiary of his to be converted into a plastic and Tetra Pak recycling plant, when this business is not yet even conceived, and the government he practically runs had not yet announced the policy drive to recycle plastic bottles.

He needs to answer who he dealt with when he signed up for 17 Black to pass his company in Panama $1 million a year, and what would those payments be exchanged for.

He needs to answer if all his worldwide network of companies were declared to the Maltese tax authorities.

He needs to publish his tax returns since 2010 so that they can be compared with his tax returns since he came to office in 2013 and checked against his worldwide network of companies. And by the way, he needs to publish that latter set of tax returns in the first place.

Schembri is not a private person. He is the second, perhaps the most powerful holder of political office in Malta. He is accountable.

Or else, if he prefers it that way, his supposed boss Muscat is, and he can resign on his behalf instead.