Neither the heat nor the holiday period seem to have doused the sparks of the political debate, such as it is, in our country.

On the contrary, the Gaffarena case continues to turn corner after corner in this political maze, with each side trying its best to make people forget those bits which militate against it and to derive what little political advantage may be derived from each new turn.

Essentially, the case revolves around the strange deal which the government found itself immersed in regarding half a palazzo in Old Mint Street, bought by a member of the Gaffarena family and sold back to the government giving the enterprising person a nice profit.

Then parliamentary secretary Michael Falzon found himself drawn in, first as a sort of fairy godmother to Gaffarena, maybe helping him with the Lands Department, and with further deals reportedly in the offing, including the prestigious Hotel de Verdellin in Palace Square. Gaffarena seems to have done well for himself for in return for half the house in Old Mint Street, minted out of the government land in other places and a house in Sliema.

Then Dr Falzon, from a bit part in the whole affair, found himself on centre stage when it was found out that he had negotiated a nice terminal benefit from Bank of Valletta for leaving his employment and joining government at the same time that he was negotiating with the bank the lease of the  House of the Four Winds.

Now the Labour side of the media ‘discovered’ that Dr Beppe Fenech Adami, PN deputy leader, who had previously batted away Gaffarena’s post on Facebook which implied a long familiarity between the two consisting of meals, receptions and the like, had been Gaffarena’s lawyer in three rather low-key lawsuits.

Predictably, Labour has been crying to high heavens and the prime minister yesterday led the braying pack.

This is where the issue becomes totally weird. For the prime minister cannot seriously cry to high heavens because a lawyer on the Opposition’s benches undertook a lawyer’s job, while condoning what his parliamentary secretary did in and out of office – took holidays together, and shadowed the inking of a deal with the Lands Department out of which Mr Gaffarena became seriously rich while he, Dr Falzon, was in office.

The two just cannot be compared.

However, Dr Fenech Adami should have come forth with the information he had acted as Mr Gaffarena’s lawyer instead of allowing his political  enemies do that for him. Claiming he never really met Mr Gaffarena except maybe at some reception or so when he had had Mr Gaffarena as his lawyer was not wise.

Mr Gaffarena seems to be a serial past-master of the art. There is the case also of the abusive petrol station outside Qormi which the previous Mepa board under the previous government refused to sanction, even though if memory serves right, the Directorate recommended its granting.

The prime minister and the Labour media had once again raised to high heavens the ‘news’ that Mr Gaffarena had had a meeting with Dr Simon Busuttil before the election while keeping silent on two facts: that not even then did Mr Gaffarena get his petrol station sanctioned and that the sanctioning took place once the new government was in office.

Labour and Mr Gaffarena are in synch when they seem to imply that a meeting between a politician and a client must necessarily lead to a bending of the rules and ultimately to the person involved making a tidy profit. If we were all to go by this maxim, we would have pushed politics back to the times of Dom Mintoff and Lorry Sant.