Joseph Muscat must have been an angry man last Sunday.

After having painstakingly built the tempo that led the Labour Party to score a political victory on the power station extension contract – the vote in Parliament was lost, but the moral victory is Labour’s, although I have reservations about the walk-out and subsequent behaviour – he had to pick up the phone to call the Prime Minister to express his solidarity after the grave in which Dr Lawrence Gonzi’s mother is buried was vandalised.

I am sure the Labour Party had nothing to do with the incident. I am sure that there is no connection whatsoever between the cowards who committed such a vile act and the PL.

But today we live a life of perceptions. And just as much as the perception is that the Labour Party handsomely won the debate on the power station extension in spite of losing the vote, after Sunday’s vandalism at the Addolorata Cemetery the perception is that the ghosts of the past are still haunting the Labour Party.

Labour built its case on the power station extension contract well. The auditor’s report said there was no evidence of corruption, but anyone reading between the lines realised that the waters were murky, to put it mildly.

The fact that the government was defending its decision all the way through – and, at times, not doing it well – gave the PL more ammunition with which to fire back. The way the PL put forward its arguments last Thursday week was nearly perfect, the final shot being the request for the Speaker of the House to rule on whether Nationalist MP Charlo Bonnici had a conflict of interest.

The PL knew the ruling would have been against it, but by prolonging the issue and raising even more doubts, it was getting closer to its target. That the Speaker took more than three hours to decide was all in Labour’s favour.

Where Labour started to go wrong was in their reaction to Mario Galea’s mistake when the vote was taken. They knew it was a genuine error, but in their haste to win the vote they picked on it in spite of Mr Galea’s immediate correction. The PL should have been content with having achieved a great moral victory – which, in this case, has a stronger impact than the real victory – and should have realised that walking out of Parliament would have put them in bad light, which it did.

Storming off amid insults and banging on tables is even worse, as it reminded many of how Nationalist MPs were intimidated in the House when Labour was in government. That walk-out dented Labour’s moral victory, which would otherwise have been complete.

It would have been better if Labour had stayed on, lost the vote, and left the House claiming that it had delivered its message. This would have also given them the edge over a Nationalist Party in difficulty, and they would have won more political points with neutral voters if they had accepted the end result.

Whether Labour should have then chosen to push the Deputy Speaker, Labour MP Carmelo Abela, to resign is also debatable; just as much as it is arguable whether they should have created so many obstacles that led to another marathon sitting the following Monday. Equally, by reneging on a gentleman’s agreement in last Wednesday’s session shows a Labour Party that now wants to stretch the matter beyond reason.

There’s another thing. If, as Labour are saying, the Nationalists should not have picked on Justyne Caruana because she is pregnant, they should not have picked on Mr Galea who, it is known, is not in the best of health.

The PL should also have refrained from providing affidavits from all its MPs who say they heard Dr Caruana say “yes”. It is hard to believe they all heard her.

Having said this, it is similarly hard to believe that four Nationalist MPs heard Dr Caruana voting against her party. I am sure that, just after her vote, there would have been some kind of commotion, had Dr Caruana really said “no”. To me, this was just a desperate political stunt the PN came up with to confuse matters even more and force a re-vote.

And so, between that famous Thursday night and the following Sunday, Labour were on a high. If an election had been held during those days, I am sure that the result would have been in their favour, and handsomely too.

But it all came crumbling down on Sunday morning, when it became known that the grave of Mrs Inez Gonzi, the Prime Minister’s mother, had been vandalised by persons unknown.

I repeat, the Labour Party had nothing to do with it, and Dr Muscat did well to call Dr Gonzi directly to express his disdain and solidarity. It was the only thing he could do to contain the political damage that such a despicable act inflicted on the Labour Party, in spite of its total innocence.

But, as I wrote earlier, today it is mostly a matter of perception. Such an incident will not help Labour. The party is still associated with violent acts that happened in the 1980s, and acts such as the one committed on Mrs Gonzi’s grave harm the party more than anything else.

The fact that the pro-Labour media, including the General Workers’ Union daily, did not have the decency to report the incident goes a long way to explain how much Labour felt damaged by what had happened. Hiding these facts will not add to its credibility.

That the discovery was made on Mother’s Day must have been even more painful for the Prime Minister and his family.

I was at the Addolorata Cemetery when his brother, Dr Michael Gonzi, went to see the damage that has been done. And the pain was clear in his eyes. While everyone else was there putting flowers on their mother’s grave, saying a short prayer and paying their respects to the person who gave them life, the grave he was looking at had been burnt and broken, while insulting words had been scratched on the wall of the chapel next to it.

I could not bring myself to talk to him, visibly distraught as he was. His departing words – “now I have to tell my father” – were the essence of the pain he must have been feeling.

It is one thing to criticise a politician or a political party. That’s the way it goes. But it’s a completely different matter if the graves of politicians’ mothers become the target of so much hatred.

And that is why Joseph Muscat was angry last Sunday.

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