How awkward that the only EU government minister in the Panama Papers is one of their own

And that the only EU prime minister who is implicated – through his chief of staff and the aforementioned minister – is one of their own too. This is the Labour Party’s home group in the European Parliament.

When David Thake rang their media officer a couple of days ago, live on radio, for a comment about Konrad Mizzi’s and Keith Schembri’s involvement, the media officer didn’t even know about it – even though their names had been all over the news and Mizzi’s was right there in the ICIJ graphics.

The media officer seemed stunned and said that she couldn’t comment without reference to her superiors “about something as serious as this”. I don’t know whether she ever got back to Thake about it. If he’s reading this, maybe he’ll tell us.