The Labour Party yesterday wondered about how genuine the Prime Minister was.

Its puzzlement arose in the wake of an interview Lawrence Gonzi gave to The Sunday Times (STOM) in which the interviewee, the paper’s new deputy editor, misquoted the Prime Minister, saying he had received e-mails from “opposition members” who had said it was a good budget which Dr Gonzi had handed down on 15 October.

That sparked outrage at the MLP headquarters and each member of the Labour parliamentary group went on to issue a signed declaration denying any such email.

It turned out that in fact the Prime Minister had not said “opposition members”. The words he had used referred to a much wider public – “people coming from the opposite party” was actually the phrase used.

After the Labour parliamentary group’s signed declaration, the Department of Information circulated the Prime Minister’s exact words. Which gave more ammunition to the Labour Party.

It was only the signed declaration, the MLP charged yesterday, which had forced the Prime Minister to issue a statement to deny The Sunday Times quote.

And, it went on, it was very strange that the Prime Minister had waited for the Parliamentary Group’s declaration, and for almost two days, before saying that the newspaper had misquoted him.

The question was, the MLP said – what would have happened had the Labour Parliamentary Group not denied what the Prime Minister had said? This was another case which raised many questions about how genuine the Prime Minister was, the MLP added.

In a statement yesterday evening, the Office of the Prime Minister said that the Labour Party wanted to hide the fact that people close to it consider Budget 2008 as having been positive.

Emails received by the Prime Minister over the past days, including from Labourites, continue to confirm that the measures announced by the government were appreciated.

No kind of pressure will induce the OPM to reveal the names of those who expressed themselves in favour of the budget, the statement said.