At the beginning, there was just Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri. Then more and more names were mentioned and soon they jelled together in one impregnable bastion, topped of course by Joseph Muscat.

By now, that is around two or more years down the line, the number of those mentioned has grown exponentially. The bastion has grown in size and the more they were attacked, the more they jelled together.

On the other hand, there are other persons in the Labour administration and party who have never been criticized or attacked, nor tarred along with the Muscat-Mizzi-Schembri trio, who go about their duty as best as they can.

There can be no doubt however that the core bastion is fully in charge of the party and the administration. The others just follow, hoping against hope they will not be called upon to defend the core bastion, but ready, if called, to defend it with all their might.

The more they are attacked, we said, the more they jell together. Facing attacks together is a special kind of cement that makes it all the harder for those opposite to prize it apart. This is of course, in the nature of things: the more the top of the pyramid is attacked, the more those who form the top of the pyramid stick together.

This, in a way, is what those opposing and criticizing risk: they risk making the pyramid all stronger. Besides, as we will probably see come 1 May, the repeated attacks will enrage the Labour supporters just as happened last year when the mammoth mass meeting at Castille Square overflowed into the surrounding streets and was a harbinger of the overwhelming election victory just a month or so later.

There is, however, a different scenario to consider. The more they jel together, the more they fall together. There is, as has been remarked, a complete absence of critical voices inside the party and the government and any timid voices, such as Evarist Bartolo’s earlier criticism of MFSA have fallen silent.

This is as things stand now. There is no hope of any split in the Labour ranks. We are in, as was said in the past days, for the long haul.