I know. I had gone to one around two and a half years ago with a friend, out of curiosity. It was full of men (obviously) most of whom I had known or known of since childhood, all terribly impressed by that pathetic bogan of a former Super One reporter I had known since 1992. I thought they were fawningly ridiculous, behaving as though it’s still 1984 and you need to suck up to the Prime Minister and his cronies for an import licence.

That was the case that day and members had been asked to confirm their attendance for the event.

People used to flock to events involving Prime Minister Muscat because they wanted to be seen to be there. The tide has changed. He is soiled and members do not want to be associated with him.

What more can one say?

There is only one possible reason for deliberate opacity even when facing fierce criticism and this one reason is corruption.

The number of black horizontal stripes in published documents would proportional to the amount of corruption if it were somehow measurable. It is difficult to prove the obvious simply because it is fundamental and therefore, in this sense, it can be quite challenging. Corruption in this country is impossible to measure as it grows too rapidly.

There are only accusations he explains, so the government should clear things up and they will go away. He doesn’t even want to specify what these accusations are.

Then, when he says that Malta’s reputation has suffered, he’s very insistent that it’s not him saying it but “the survey”. It’s what the members of the Chamber are saying, not his opinion; he’s only a messenger. He makes himself as small as possible, so as not to be a target for the expected retaliation.

You know, we have that saying in Maltese: the mother of the craven never grieves.