Watch this video and see how Konrad Mizzi has been left alone in his moment of triumph and glory

This is a Labour Party television video, which means they will have done their best and even tampered with the editing to make it look as good as they can.

It shows Konrad Mizzi in his moment of triumph and glory, when his election as Labour deputy leader for party affairs, with 96% of the delegate vote, has just been announced. And he is alone, completely alone.

In a situation like this he would ordinarily have been flanked by a beaming Joseph Muscat (as party leader), Louis Grech (as deputy party leader for parliamentary affairs) and Toni Abela (as outgoing deputy leader for party affairs).

There would also have been a scrum of hangers-on trying to get into the shot, and government ministers and other senior Labour big cheeses like Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and Karl Stagno Navarra lined up to congratulate him, making sure they are filmed doing so, and everybody smiling, grinning, clapping and back-slapping.

But all you can see here is a wide circle round Mizzi, like a contamination zone, and a few unknown people from the offices. The only recognisable faces are party apparatchik Nikita Zammit Alamango of the Labour Youth Forum, party president Daniel Micallef, and the party’s CEO, Gino Cauchi, looking decidedly grim and green about the gills. Nobody is smiling, making Konrad Mizzi’s beaming face and excited tone even more incongruous than they do in the context of Panamagate.

And Muscat is nowhere to be seen at the formal anointment of his chosen one, for whom he forced a change in the party rules.