Today, I had planned to write on the implications of the first round of the French presidential elections, to explore and reflect on the implications of this completely new political situation in one of Europe's biggest states.

However, the events of the past three days made me change my plans and compelled me to watch all of yesterday's Xarabank audience-less confrontation between Joseph Muscat and Simon Busuttil.

I do not know if any media organisation is holding a telephone survey today, just as they do elsewhere, asking people what they have made of the at times crude and very angry exchange. To see if after the programme, PN supporters still believe in Dr Busuttil and PL supporters in Dr Muscat, and to see what the uncommitted or the switchers think about the debate.

To see if people believe that Mrs Muscat is Egrant, as alleged by Daphne Caruana Galizia from documents she says she has, or not. To see if people still believe that the Panama Papers scandal was a story concocted by Ms Caruana Galizia and the PN media to resurrect their floundering party or whether there is truth in the story.

Before going on Xarabank, the Prime Minister said he intended to confront Dr Busuttil and to look him straight in the eye and ask him to produce proof that Mrs Muscat is Egrant. This he did but Dr Busuttil, not being the original author of the allegation, should have directed him to the real owner - Daphne. That would have been the mother of all Xarabank confrontations - Dr Muscat v Mrs Caruana Galizia. It is already happening all over the islands and in all the media anyway.

I have been looking at Facebook to see people's reactions. Many are saying no proof has been presented.

First of all, Xarabank is not a court of justice. It is a television show, no more no less.

Secondly, the case may have been compromised by the cack-handed police force in Malta who woke up to the seriousness of the case with a 12-hour delay by which time the birds may have flown. Enterprising NET journalists waited outside Pilatus Bank in Ta' Xbiex till late at night and caught the bank's owner leaving the premises by the back door, wandering around the street and being so confused they even forgot which side we drive on in Malta.

Is this proof of wrongdoing? Circumstantial perhaps but no scientific proof.

What about the mysterious plane that landed in Malta a short time after this and took off in the direction of Baku with no passengers on board (which does not mean it did not take on the bagful that had been in the hands of the bank's Iranian owner)? Circumstantial perhaps, but not scientific proof.

The seriousness of the police ineptitude and lack of timely action in this case is enormous but this is not the first time it happened. I remember a case some years ago when the police took action and raided an office, taking away with them a lot of computers, but to do so they dismembered the network and what they really wanted to find lay in the network, not in the single computers. In this case involving allegations against Mrs Muscat, there is obvious political pressure at the highest level, which was absent in the other case I am speaking about. Still, we should not be complacent about police ineptitude, ever.

Going by what was said before Xarabank began, I expected Dr Muscat to be angrier. I certainly would be in such circumstances. Nor were Dr Muscat's arguments disproving the allegations any good. The argument about the address is a laughable one and so too, but this is rather technical, about the date. It is true Mrs Muscat is not mentioned in the Panama Papers and that there is no evidence of her signature. Again, all this is rather circumstantial.

But this is not a court of law and we are not discussing the issue as if we are involved in a libel case. We are speaking about the level of public opinion and the rules here are different. The issue is: without seeing Mrs Muscat's signature, how many people still believe she is Egrant? And what would stop them believing this?

We have entered here the realm of the illegal, so Dr Muscat's argument that bank transfers are done electronically and by SWIFT are rather disingenuous.

What is beyond dispute is what I call the Azerbaijan-isation of Malta. Not just because of a mysterious and unexplained sudden friendship between select people in Malta and equally select people in that country. Perhaps more because of a parallel between that country of oil and gas where democracy is flawed and a regime reigns on and this country, now enjoying the Presidency of the European Council, which is suddenly discovering its democracy is flawed, its institutions do not work and somehow a huge cover-up is at work.

So beyond the issue whether the documents have been spirited away, whether there is Mrs Muscat's signature on forms, whether millions were transferred, there is this sudden, mysterious and otherwise unexplained friendship between the ruling elite of this country in the middle of the Med and a country far away on the Caspian Sea. For that, we know who to blame: Dr Muscat and his merry men.

There was another issue in Friday's debate: the women. I find it completely distasteful for the head of government who, after years of avoiding naming Daphne Caruana Galizia, took to call her Dr Busuttil's 'siehba'. The implication is clear for Maltese-language speakers, less so for non-Maltese. 'Siehba' means mistress, paramour, and so on. If Dr Muscat means to say anything, let him say it loud and clear. That was not a term to be used on television and between party leaders. (And before the 9pm benchmark, or was the Broadcasting Authority already asleep at that time?)

I distinctly remember what Dr Busuttil claimed at one point in the debate: a scurrilous post on Glenn Bedingfield's blog directed at Kristina Chetcuti, Dr Busuttil's partner. I had remarked on it at the office. Fortunately, as Dr Muscat pointed out, it was removed a short time later.

I also note the public scolding that Ms Chetcuti yesterday gave former PN secretary-general Paul Borg Olivier, that so soave gentleman, for a post mocking Mrs Muscat.

If we go along this way, we are in for a rough time. This is going to be an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation.