Cracking under pressure: Prime Minister shows signs of scandal strain at Labour Party club

This was last Sunday, at a Labour Party club meeting in the morning. People were gearing up to demonstrate against the government in Valletta that afternoon, the PANA Committee were due in Malta the following day, and his government was in the eye of a big media-suppression storm taken up by European and international media freedom organisations.

The noose is closing tighter on issues surrounding the Panama scandal, his chief of staff is breaking down – as demonstrated by the contents of his letter to the PANA Committee chairman, and the mode and time of delivery – and Konrad Mizzi is a massive bomb set to detonate any time between now and the general election.

And to make matters worse, Muscat has to live with the knowledge that in an act of bravado, his government repealed the time-barring clause on crimes of corruption – so now that he and his crooks have been rumbled, burying the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit’s report to the Police is only going to help them for another year or at most another five. They have to live with that fear – but it is also the hope which sustains the rest of us.