Was the Spouse of the Prime Minister’s clutch-bag paid for by the public purse?

I might have an overly suspicious mind (I prefer to call it putting two and two together and occasionally making five but often making four), but I’m left with the nagging feeling that the Spouse of the Prime Minister got her now-famous ‘Michelle’ sparkly clutch-bag on the public purse.

That nagging feeling tells me that when the Spouse of the Prime Minister bought that Maltese cross clutch-bag from Sunita Mukhi for the Duchess of Cambridge – an official expense – she put her ‘Michelle’ bag on the same bill and the public picked up the tab.

They were clearly both acquired at the same time.

There is an alternative scenario: the Spouse of the Prime Minister bought that bag for the Duchess of Cambridge, obviously on the public tab as an official expense, and cadged hers for free in return for all the publicity she’d get for Sunita Mukhi by publicising the gift she gave the duchess.

The Maltese cross clutch is priced at GBP495. The Spouse of the Prime Minister’s clutch, with Michelle emblazoned on it, is priced at GBP1,050.

So Mrs Muscat gave the Duchess of Cambridge a bag that cost half of what hers did.

For a woman who doesn’t work, with a husband on a salary, she’s doing rather well to be able to throw a thousand pounds away on a novelty clutch with her name on it that she wouldn’t be able to wear more than once or twice. But then it probably wasn’t her money.

Il-freeloaders taghna lkoll.