Somebody who was bought by Muscat thinks that his word is worth more than that of somebody who wasn’t

Lou Bondi (see below) says that I am lying about him. Of course I’m not. My only crime here was to have the common decency, out of respect for our long years of friendship during which, I realised retrospectively, he had concealed from me his close links to key Labour Party operators including Keith Schembri, not to report this story earlier.

Until yesterday, when I saw him walking out of court with Paul Bailey, I had even resolved not to report it at all, because it was a private conversation between us, despite its significant news value. But at that point yesterday I suddenly understood that it would be completely irresponsible to say nothing about him when I say so much about those who have done far less worse.

Like a spoiled child in the playground, Bondi says “it wasn’t she who stopped speaking to me, it was I who stopped speaking to her”. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the conversation in which he updated me about his efforts to have himself placed on the state payroll, and in which he told me that Keith Schembri had asked him to ring Richard Cachia Caruana on his behalf, remains the last conversation we had. We went from speaking several times a week to complete silence. It wasn’t because I was angry. It was, quite simply, because I no longer trusted him. For all I knew, he had spent the previous few years discussing me with “Keith”.

My memory is notoriously forensic in the matters I choose to recall (other things I choose to forget completely), and I can tell you that what shocked me most about that conversation was his opening words: “Keith rang me…”.

“Keith?” I said, totally bewildered. “Keith who?” (How was I supposed to know who this Keith was? We didn’t have any shared friends or associates called Keith.) “Keith Schembri,” he replied. “Kasco.”

“You said ‘Keith’, not ‘Keith Schembri’ or ‘Kasco’,” I said. “You never told me you have that kind of relationship.”

Of course, I then found out that they did indeed have that kind of relationship, and that Lou Bondi was one of the media operators with whom the Prime Minister’s corrupt chief of staff, when he was still the Opposition leader’s corrupt aide, had carefully cultivated a close relationship. So close, in fact, that he felt comfortable ringing him a few days after the general election to offer to put him on the state payroll in exchange for not renewing his TVM interview show contract.

You will understand my reaction even better when I tell you that Lou Bondi and the mother of his youngest daughter spent the day after polling-day, when the election result was out, at my home, wondering what the future held for him and, marginally, for the country.

Bondi also says here on Facebook, as proof of my “lying” that I contacted him once after that fateful telephone call. I sent him a text message when the mother of his youngest child was in hospital undergoing a dangerous emergency delivery.

Of course I did. I didn’t call precisely because I didn’t want to speak to him. The text message said: “Is Rachel all right?” and I asked because I care about her. I still do, and my restraint in commenting on his more recent choices has everything to do with respect for her. If I could have sent that text message to her, I would have – but I couldn’t, because she was giving birth. At least I hope he had the decency to tell her I was concerned enough to ask.

It was long months after the general election that I first passed a half-comment about his decision to work for Muscat, on this website. And during those months, despite my never mentioning him in writing, we had no contact. His lovely sisters, though, used to text me all the time. They wouldn’t have, if I’d been writing about their brother.

Bondi drags several other individuals into the equation and asks why I didn’t say the same about them when they took positions from the Labour government.

About three of those individuals I have had plenty to say in private but it is not for public consumption. They are well aware what I think. And in any case, Bondi is the only one who had himself literally put on the state payroll, as a consultant to the Prime Minister, for a sum that is more than what government heads of department are paid and twice as much what doctors in the state healthcare service receive.

As for retired judge Vanni Bonello, for whom I continue to have the greatest respect, I don’t think he will be annoyed at me at this late stage if I reveal that I rang him as soon as the news was announced, a few days after the general election, that he would lead a ‘Justice Reform Commission’ set up by – as I recall – Owen Bonnici.

I said to him that I didn’t agree with his decision, that he didn’t need to do it, that he shouldn’t do it, that collaborating with such dastardly people is intrinsically wrong, and that those bad people did not want his advice or his work. They only wanted his scalp and to be able to announce in the news that the much respected Giovanni Bonello was now working for them.

“They want to use your name to lend themselves legitimacy and credibility,” I said. “They want to bask in your reflected glory. And above all, you will work hard and take the brief seriously, and it will all be for nothing because when you have completed your report they will ignore it and use it to spite you. Worse still, given what we know of them it is inevitable that they will descend into baseness and corruption before long and you can’t have your name smeared by association with them.”

And that is exactly what they did, because just days – again, as I recall at the moment – after Judge Bonello submitted his report to the government, one of the strongest recommendations of which was that government ministers should not appoint judges and magistrates, but that there should be an open competitive process, Owen Bonnici appointed a bunch of Labour Party apparatchiks to the bench, including Judge Wenzu Mintoff, the most offensive appointment of the lot.

I am not at liberty to report Judge Bonello’s side of the conversation, except to say that he thought there was nothing wrong in working for a democratically elected government. My response to that was that Mintoff’s governments of 1971 to 1981 were democratically elected too. And I don’t think he would have wanted to work for them.

But Bonello is a man of integrity, which is why he was at the national protest against government corruption some weeks ago, and Lou Bondi wasn’t, because he prefers to work for the corrupt government instead. And because 54,000 euros a year are apparently not enough for a man of 60 with absolutely no dependents except a toddler who is half-supported by her mother who has a full-time, demanding job, Muscat has also given him a contract which allows him to do other ‘consultancy’ work – like advising crash millionaire Paul Bailey and helping open doors and gain access for Labour Party donor and Institute-of-Tourism-Studies-site snatch-and-grab thief Silvio Debono of the Seabank.

And no, Lou, you don’t put your children first and never have – and I will not sink to your level of using your children in your defence so as to explain why. The fact that you don’t know says it all.

What was my instant, unconsidered reaction – which shot uncontrolled out of my mouth, from the point of view of a mother of sons exactly the same age as your daughters – when you told me that you were expecting another baby from yet another woman, at 57? “Oh my God. But what about X and Y (names of grown-up oldest daughters)? Haven’t you thought about them at all? They’re at an age when they’re probably thinking of having babies and you go and have one yourself?”

To people who put themselves first, and not their children, that kind of consideration doesn’t come up.

But let’s stick to the subject in hand. Try to work out why I didn’t “stop doing journalism” and have Muscat put me on the state payroll instead, Lou, and there you have your answer as to where you went wrong, and are still going wrong.

Muscat and “Keith” did not put you on the state payroll because they want or need your advice on how to throw a party with fireworks, light projections and guitarists from the 1970s. They put you on the state payroll to silence you with money. It’s entirely telling that they knew it would work.

Muscat and “Keith” would pay a whole lot more than 54,000 euros a year to take me out of journalism and buy my silence. It’s also entirely telling how they knew instinctively that if they tried making an offer, they would wind up with a rocket up their arse and a graphic description of that offer on this website.