First he tries that ‘she’s not a journalist’ thing, then he has my bank accounts frozen

Pawlu Lia is acting for both Minister Konrad Mizzi and Minister Chris Cardona in their suits against me. But whenever he has a case against me, it’s personal. Everybody notices. He goes rabid, contorted face and all (and now he will probably complain to the Kamra tal-Avukati or the court).

Unfortunately, his personal animosity towards me – in which he is rivalled only by Saviour Balzan, who is currently engaged in rabidly tweeting and Facebooking his rage that people are not defending Cardona from my murderous and vicious weapons – leads him to give advice to his clients that do not factor in the public relations considerations that are crucial for a cabinet minister.

Lia is the man who had Konrad Mizzi petition the court to have me declared “not a journalist” in the hope of forcing me to reveal my source. That backfired really badly in the court of public opinion.

And now Lia, again, is the man who advised Chris Cardona and his policy officer, Joe Gerada, to freeze my bank accounts with four precautionary warrants. In their nasty desire to create maximum hassle for their victim, they didn’t pause to consider the most important element for a minister of the government: how it would play out in public opinion.

Suffice it to say that the internet was immediately set alight and that the fire raged into the night through to this morning so far. It wiped pastizzi clean off the agenda.

Even Labour-voting lawyers were, this morning in Valletta, saying of the decision: “Dak qiegħed jiġennen, jew?” They were referring to Cardona, of course, because lawyers aren’t great at running each other down except in private.

“Imbaghad iffrizajtilha l-kontijiet tal-bank kif qalli Pawlu…”