It was impossible, this week, to get any sort of consensus about Joseph Muscat's place in Maltese history. On the one hand he was hailed as Malta's greatest leader ever, even greater than Dom Mintoff. On the other, he was reviled as heading a government of crooks, or an 'artful dodger' as he was called on TV.

We will have to wait many, many years until some sort of consensus emerges. And we still do not know how Muscat will end his days. Will he be booted out of office by an election defeat? Hardly, it would seem, seeing the ample consensus he garnered in 2013 and last year. Opinion surveys actually have him soaring up and up, though that might be due to the quality (or lack of) of his rival.

Certainly, he will be remembered as the leader who got Labour back on its feet and electable, after all those years in the Opposition wilderness. I remember those years when he and Joe Mifsud were buddies in the Labour newsroom, and when Labour embarked on many a wild goose chase against EU membership.

Then, having driven Labour deeper in a hole it dug itself, they managed to claw their way out - or rather Joe Muscat did; Joe Mifsud remained in the hole, though he eased out of the Labour core. Muscat morphed into an MEP and the years he spent in Brussels changed him - it also showed him how EU membership could be a boon.

After the 2008 defeat -10 years ago - he contested the PL leadership and won. People saw only his youth and underestimated him as they had done with Eddie Fenech Adami before him. Labour used to call Eddie 'il-vavu bil-harqa' (the child with the nappy) - the Nationalists did not call Muscat that, but the sentiment was the same.

We know now, or at least we have a good idea of what took place, how he collected and pasted together the different tassels with which he composed the Moviment that won in 2013, his first election campaign which he won.

It now seems clear that he never really left the Labour core of his youth - just kept them in the background and filled the front lines with people from the non-Labour core Moviment. People were taken in.

Behind the scenes he reached out and made clear commitments to the people he admired and he felt close to - in particular developers big and small. He got some of Malta's biggest developers on his side and, years before the election, committed himself to their plans. If not all these plans came to fruition, that was not because of any reservations on his side but maybe because developers were not always ready with their plans.

Some, who had eaten their fill under PN, wanted more and turned to Muscat when they sensed PN was giving in to environmental concerns. The majority of developers turned to Labour in a big way and were rewarded with easy permits.

The second cohort Muscat attracted to his banner were all those searching for a more liberal Malta. He was helped in this by a still confessional and orthodox PN, even when the divorce battle was forced on the country by two mavericks from either side and divorce was introduced to the country, the pig-headed PN refused to see the writing on the wall.

Then the large number of people, especially those in government employment, those who stood to gain from government employment, those who could gain by promotions etc - even PN stalwarts - sensed which way the wind was blowing and changed over in droves. That accounts for the mass migration in 2013 and the even bigger one in 2017.

One thing I've noticed about him is that he never stops when he wins, but keeps going on and on until the margin he gets is absolutely certain and irrevocable. That means that in politics he keeps making commitments even when he does not really need to do so. But what happens when he does not have any more commitments to make?

Without the hindsight that someone writing a hundred years from now will have, I say he is now past his apogee. Gone are the years when he was the youngest PM around the EU table. The Maltese Presidency has come and gone. Almost halfway the Capital City of Culture, we have deeply conflicting views about it. He is leaving no monument of his reign, except for Pjazza Tritoni and a Castille Square cluttered with monuments of dubious taste.

And of course, all this baggage of corruption and sleaze though not directly involving him point the finger at those close to him. His inability to sack people like Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri speak volumes. Some of his other ministers, getting the nod, have started doing what they want.

His speeches these days, even the one in Paola on Wednesday, are all about growth and IMF figures when people still fall below the poverty line, when people still live in garages and when people on a pension cannot make ends meet, and when ARMS persists in charging people more than they should be charged for water and electricity.

And when roads are in shambles and when constructors treat people like dirt, and when government services are still as inefficient as they have always been.

And, most fundamentally, he shows no sign of reinventing himself.

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