Joseph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi consolidate and cement their control of the Labour Corruption Machine

The news this morning that Konrad Mizzi is likely to be the new Labour Party deputy leader, replacing Toni Abela (who is to be dispatched to the European Court of Auditors on €240,000 a year), is worrying indeed.

Muscat is changing the party rules to make it possible for this to happen. Until now, the deputy leader for party affairs cannot be a member of parliament. And he is also using up a major post in his gift, which could have been used to reward somebody more useful than Toni Abela, to make it happen.

I think the time has come for journalists and members of the public to seriously consider the question of why Joseph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi are inevitably glued at the hip, like co-conspirators or business partners, in the significant decisions and deals this government has made.

It is not a coincidence that Konrad Mizzi was made Minister for Energy given that the power station tender was a fixed deal and a pre-electoral tahwida. It is not a coincidence that Godfrey Farrugia was unceremoniously and suddenly beheaded and replaced as Health Minister by Konrad Mizzi, who had a burdensome energy portfolio already, in preparation for that other fixed tender and tahwida in hospital privatisation.

It is not a coincidence that when Joseph Muscat visits Azerbaijan, he goes with Konrad Mizzi, his office shark Keith Schembri and his communications man Kurt Farrugia, and they take no civil servants or Foreign Office negotiators with them.

It is not a coincidence that Konrad Mizzi’s wife is able to hold the government to ransom for a large income while doing no work in return after returning to her country with her children on her own terms. She isn’t receiving that money as alimony, as some have suggested and as has been widely assumed. She has been able to demand it, and get it, because she knows where the bodies are buried.

Joseph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi have something going on between them. They are operating in tandem. Two scenarios present themselves to me: one of them is filling his pockets and the other knows about it, or both are filling their pockets and this is a covert joint venture. If one goes down, the other goes down too – and because of their particular positions, so does the entire government.