It was five to nine in the evening on Saturday 25 August. I had just got home and was about to sit down to a welcome plate of pasta, when the phone rang.

At the other end was Joe Mifsud, Labour’s international secretary, with whom I had had an easy and friendly chat earlier in the day.

This time, however, he sounded very angry: “Did you let her (Daphne Caruana Galizia) write about his wig?” he asked.

I was flabbergasted. The newspaper had not even left our offices by then, as the sports pages still needed to be closed.

How do you know, I asked him.

Because someone told us, he replied.

He then somehow realised that I was not at the office, and that, at least as I interpreted his next words, I could not pull out the offending article at that late stage.

So far we have kept this episode quiet, although I protested with Labour secretary general Jason Micallef last week.

But in the light of MaltaToday’s Saviour Balzan’s revelations last Sunday, a completely new light has been shed: Does Labour indeed have a spy in every newsroom? Or is there more to this than meets the eye?

And if Labour exerts so much pressure on two newsrooms prior to publication while still in Opposition, what will it do when in power?

After all, all that Joe Mifsud needed to do was to call me the next morning and haul me over the coals for allowing Daphne’s article. But he had to do it pre-publication.

The irony is I was more concerned about the PN printing press running the story about Joe Saliba’s holiday on Zaren Vassallo’s yacht, but there was not a peep from that direction. Nor has there ever been.