An important point has been obscured: Muscat’s government DROPPED eviction proceedings against Cities Entertainment

“They won’t believe that I helped him out for nothing.”

The argument the prime minister is using now is that it would have been problematic to evict Cities Entertainment from the Cafe Premier premises.

He gave the impression that the government would have to start the case and it would be too much.

But the case for the eviction of Cities Entertainment had begun already, and had been ongoing for more than a year at the time he sat down, as prime minister, to Gmail an agreement with them.

And he dropped the case for their eviction. An eviction case like this, when you have not paid your rent for years or honoured the terms of your agreement, is clear-cut. The case was well underway already. But rather than let it reach its obvious conclusion, he bought them out using OPM (other people’s money).

And there’s another point to be made here, too. Mr Millions Camilleri gave the Nationalist Party a documented donation of a thousand euros (erba mitt lira, for old-timers) which was written into the party’s books officially in May 2012. Six months later, the (Nationalist) government started the case for his eviction. So really it’s hard to work out what he and Joseph Muscat are on about with their dove-tailed newspaper talk of donations.

Hands up all those who think that Muscat helped Mario Camilleri out for love not money. There are some who think that he helped him out because he promised to do so in return for his vote and those of his family. But four and a half million euros is a very high price to pay for a handful of votes. It would give Inspector Gadget, now the Speaker of the House, a heart attack.

True, Muscat and his Labour Party were operating on the basis of ‘every little makes more’, collecting vote by vote using a process of micro-targeting, but it doesn’t quite make sense. I really do think it goes beyond that.