Muscat and gang came across as clean (although none of us who voted PN in 2013 ever expected them to be). However, with Delia, what you see is what you will get – it is clear from the outset that as a lawyer he has made bad professional choices for the furtherance of his own financial benefit. This shows the man’s to have a predisposition to sleaze from the outset, and should never be entrusted with the running of a political party, let alone a country.

It also upsets me when I hear that a lawyer may have shady clients. There is a distinction that needs to be made here. When Delia allegedly received funds deriving from illicit activity in his name, he was not performing his duties as a lawyer defending somebody accused of a crime in front of a court of law (as Franco Debono does). On the contrary, Delia as a lawyer in business offering services against remuneration to all those willing to set-up corporate structures in Malta and elsewhere should have been aware of know-your-client (KYC) procedures and requirements as well as money laundering regulations.

Even if money laundering regulation may still have been in its infancy at the time, Delia should have been aware of the potential reputational risk and ensuing fallout that could arise from associating with clients involved in prostitution and the inevitable tax evasion and money laundering operation that ensues.

To add insult to injury, Delia is still being seen with pimps, gamblers, traffickers (or relations of), known masons and other people who he should consider as personae non grata. Nothing about the way he has acted in past, and the way he is acting now provides the necessary re-assurance to so seriously consider him as the person who should lead the PN.