Letters and more details have emerged in what has come to be known as the Blokka Bajda case. They reveal indisputably that the Labour leader knew about the cocaine/white powder difficulties which led to the sacking of a man who ran a Labour club bar, even as they occurred.

The man in question wrote to Joseph Muscat explaining his side of the story, and he received a reply from Muscat. He then met Muscat, was still very upset, and was told that the Labour leader would condescend to have his picture taken with him, to show that things were all right between them. The picture was taken. But things were not all right between them and now they have blown up in Muscat’s face.

He has been scrambling for damage limitation, but only messing things up further. When he denied that he knew anything about the case, he said, he was talking about the other incident in which another barman changed the locks at another Labour club. That was when Toni Abela was caught on digital recording saying that he had gone down to the police station, found a ‘Labour policeman’ and asked him ‘not to proceed for now’.

Now I see this is why Muscat claimed repeatedly and emphatically, when pushed by the press, not have heard “any recording”. This was not due to lack of interest, because we can bet our last cent that he listened to the recordings repeatedly. It was so that he would be able to claim ignorance of the matter and confusion of the two separate cases. Sadly, there wasn’t a reporter around with quick enough wits to ask him why he didn’t hear the recording, whether he didn’t think this irresponsible, and whether he planned on doing so any time soon.

Because you really do have to ask why a party leader in the thick of an election campaign, faced with a nuclear bomb of a recording featuring his deputy leader and a ‘white block’ – the sort of white block which even that deputy leader knew should be reported to the police – would choose not to listen to it.

So now it’s all about “Oh, you mean that other Labour Party club, the one where the barman was sacked except that he wasn’t really sacked and anyway it wasn’t really drugs because I think it was ice or at least that’s what they said.”

Ice? Yes, ice. Ice is the street name for crystal meth, so if they were speaking English, then we would have a whole other set of problems here, because crystal meth can actually be made in your kitchen or garage, if you’re that way inclined and prepared to spend a few years in prison if you’re discovered. But they weren’t speaking English. They were speaking Maltese, and the word was ‘silg’.

So they’re not making and selling crystal meth – it’s far crazier than that. They actually would like us to believe that the Blokka Bajda that gave Toni Abela palpitations of concern at the thought of what the police and the press might do was a Tupperware box of water placed in the freezer and then cut up with a chisel because the poor staff were not given the budget for a few ice-cube trays.

It’s not even funny. It’s mad and sad. A block of ice is not white, and nor is it cut up with a knife. If the Labour club president had really walked into that kitchen and found somebody cutting up a block of ice, he wouldn’t have made him throw it into the bin in a panic. Nor, more significantly, would he have referred to it as “trab” (powder). I’ve seen many odd things in my lifetime, but powdered ice that frightens and panics people is not one of them. And that club president wouldn’t have gone to Toni Abela, who is responsible for the party clubs, to report that somebody had been breaking up ice in his kitchen and that he had had the evidence destroyed.

This really is a mess. I suppose they took a chance back then on nobody ever finding out about this. The evidence went into the bin (that bit is difficult to believe), the man was sacked, consoling him by having his picture taken with the Fearless Leader didn’t work, and nobody took into account the fact that most smart-phones can record silently for hours even as they sit innocuously on the table in front of you. Of course, the weak link in this reasoning is the sacked barman who says he was kicked out unjustly because he had no idea what was going on in his kitchen. Did they imagine he would stay silent? Probably – because he had a photograph with the leader to keep him happy.