I remember the point being made in Dom Mintoff’s time that MPs did not earn a salary that matched their efforts in their constituency work, to which they devoted considerable time.

The worthy idea was mooted that perhaps an MP’s work should be a full time job, with earnings to match what they did. I do not think there was any opposition to the idea, but it was never followed up.

MPs, particularly Labour MPs, are very creative people, especially where it comes to self-interest. And where there is nothing to constrain them. They did not push the full time job idea, because they did not like it I think, but found a discreditable way round to making the earnings they made as MPs more than a match for the efforts they made in their work for parliament.

Their efforts proved very profitable for them. No one mentions a full time job for MPs today. They do not want it. What they have today is far more profitable – a bottomless trough, in which they can dip their snout for all they can make.

Some make it rich, others not so richly, but well enough for them to prefer the trough to the full time job. Even MPs who were not re-elected make a profit from the deep public trough - their efforts continue reaping profits, in the form of consultancies, even after they stop ‘’working’’ for the country.

Do you remember the fuss made in 2013 about a tal-Lira clock for then Minister Tonio Fenech? And how the One media played it up as if it were a million euro donation. The gift became a cause celebre. The PN lost the election that year and the tal-Lira clock transformed itself for some into a secret Panama company. One media closed its eyes to that scandal, it was coming from their side.

They had a thorn in their side, however - a person who gave her life to her work, Daphne Caruana Galizia. Who knows whether all that became public through her efforts would have sunk into oblivion if she had not had the courage to do what she did?

We owe the cesspool of corruption that came with the 2013 election result to Joseph Muscat. Either unwittingly, or by design, he gave a free hand to Konrad Mizzi, who as minister was involved in multi-million euro projects. I wonder, was Mizzi in cahoots with that other manipulator, Muscat’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri. Nice lot that Joseph Muscat brought with him. He trusted them, I suppose, and for his trust they betrayed him. I suppose it is beyond him to decide on who to trust and who to keep a distance from.

Robert Abela is gambling with the possibility of seeing his record high countrywide party vote, dip disastrously to a close result at the next election, though he is in time still, I think, to halt the deep slide.

He has started his efforts, by intending to dish out our tax money. I don’t think that this time that will work.

He needs to show a strong hand against the abusers in his party, such as Rosianne Cutajar, but of course he himself is tainted somewhat, because of the shadow hanging over the deal for the residence he purchased, about which doubts were raised. Nothing as serious, I think, as Ian Borg’s blatant abuse, with a legally unsanctioned swimming pool.

Why Labour party leaders since KMB have lost control over their MPs is beyond me. Alfred Sant kept control admirably, after him came the big slide. It is all one for one, and none for all.

Those that can dip their snout in the trough right up to their eyebrows do so without fear, those that do not, make the attempt. Rosianne Cutajar said she would, her mistake was not her intention, but her naivete in making her intentions public. Her tongue ran away with her, and showed her party for what it is, the cesspool Joseph Muscat had created.

Rosianne has paid the political price for the shadow she cast on her parliamentary colleagues, she is now an independent MP, and I wonder if she got some recompense for her decision.

Robert Abela said Cutajar had already paid for what she did. She was removed from parliamentary secretary. But her aim to dip into the cesspool came after her removal.

But still, Robert Abela does not seem to want to act. He seems helplessly shackled. What is holding him back from taking action? What constraints are there on his Office of Prime Minister, that are preventing him from acting?

Preventing him even where action is needed, such as in the unnecessary death of young Jean Paul Sofia. What could possibly be the hindrance for a public enquiry there, where a human life was lost, possibly because of someone’s incompetence, or non-observance of rules?