He said Brian Tonna owed him money. Who is he kidding.

The Prime Minister’s chief of staff zipped straight to Facebook after the Opposition leader’s excellent press conference, which makes a change from the abusive manner in which he releases statements about his messes through the government’s Department of Information rather than through his lawyers, which is the proper way to do it.

Declaring that he would sue Busuttil for libel damages – they are now rendering themselves completely ridiculous with all these vexatious libel suits – he said that the €100,000 Brian Tonna paid him really were the repayment of a loan which he made to him in 2012.

He must really take the lot of us for fools, chickens and turnips – or Luciano Busuttil. We are supposed to believe that Tonna, whose business turns over millions, needed to borrow €100,000. And that even if he needed to borrow that sum, the banks wouldn’t give a loan or overdraft to an accountant with a thriving practice. So he had to go cap in hand to his mate Keith.

And then, after borrowing €100,000 from his mate Keith in 2012, and his mate Keith being ever so patient and waiting for three years, Tonna was suddenly able to pay it back in 2015 (which is when the payment was made).

So these two good ol’ boys settled their debt as one does. They used their secret and undeclared accounts at a shady bank owned by an Iranian with a passport from St Kitts & Nevis, which they were instrumental in setting up after getting into power. Because every corrupt gang in government needs its own personal money-laundering bank, and it helps if it also launders the money of our Azerbaijani friends.

For an additional dose of normality, Brian Tonna used the secret British Virgin Islands company which held his secret bank account, and into which he received the money which he then moved to Schembri’s secret account.

Of course, we all do this all the time.

But here’s where Keith Schembri’s explanation falls flat on its face. Willerby Trade Inc did not exist in 2012, and so could not have borrowed money from Keith Schembri. The company was incorporated in March 2013 (significant date).

If Willerby Trade Inc’s funds were used to settle a pre-existing personal debt of the company owner’s, that is highly irregular. But of course, we don’t believe a bit of it.

Keith Schembri, in true Labour fashion, is desperately trying to manipulate the opinion of people who don’t know what a company is or how it works, and that a company’s funds are not your personal funds, and more to the point, that a company can’t borrow money a year before it has been set up and when it doesn’t exist yet.

Schembri and Tonna can now spend a little time fabricating a loan agreement dated to 2012. If that piece of work Cardona could do it with a lease agreement, they can do it with a loan agreement. But it will be next to impossible to fabricate a bank copy of a cashed cheque for €100,000 bearing the same date.