Education Minister Evarist Bartolo was perfectly correct when he said that there is a law for the gods and a law for animals.

And there seems to be no difference between the parties in the way they tackle issues that are politically embarrassing.

The ironic thing is that the Labour Party accuses the Nationalist Party and its leader Simon Busuttil of having double standards, while the PN points its finger at the PL and Joseph Muscat for applying different rules depending on the people involved – and both are doing practically the same thing.

Godfrey Farrugia was unceremoniously dumped by Joseph Muscat after just one year as minister when the likeable Zebbug doctor was still finding his feet in the health sector. He had not been involved in any scandal; neither did he put his party to shame, and yet he was shown the door at the first opportunity.

Conversely, Konrad Mizzi was given a promotion masked as a reprimand after he was caught having secretly opened a company in Panama, a situation that is still politically dangerous to the Labour Party five months after it was uncovered because the minister is still to be vetted by a European Parliament committee specifically set up to deal with the Panama Papers scandal.

At the other end of the political spectrum, Joe Cassar was pushed to resign his PN position and parliamentary seat late last year because of an error of judgment that did not involve any public funds, nor any work related to his position as minister.

And then, more recently, Chris Said was allowed to stay on by Simon Busuttil in spite of a damning National Audit Office report which revealed the former parliamentary secretary had made “unwarranted interventions” that “impinged” on the independence of evaluation committees and the Local Government Department in the adjudication and issuing of funds. The report found serious administrative shortcomings such as lack of record keeping and no set budgets with regard to local council projects.

There are other examples of the sort, but these two are enough to show that the PL and the PN cannot accuse their political adversaries of adopting double standards when they are guilty of doing the same thing.

It is clear that “faces” are important for both parties when it comes to deciding on hot issues. Godfrey Farrugia would have been sacked if it was he who opened a company in Panama. Joseph Muscat would not have defended him through thick and thin as he did with Konrad Mizzi, including the internal pressure that kept coming from senior ministers for a dismissal.

Joe Cassar would have been dismissed if he had been behind the “unwarranted interventions” on local council matters. If it had been Cassar, Simon Busuttil would not have come up with the ridiculous excuse that Said’s “interventions led to a more positive outcome”.

It is not a surprise that the people’s confidence in politicians and the way political parties operate continues to drop.