Ever since this Panamagate business was revealed by journalist Daphne Caruana Galiza on her blog the government has been going round and round like a headless chicken. And this is the most benign interpretation.

Another interpretation, which we suspect is nearer the truth, is that this administration is in total panic and is striking out blindly with the force of desperation.

Let’s face it: as happened in other international cases where what was thought to be hermetically sealed suddenly became public knowledge – like Wikileaks etc – what some people thought were secrets that would never surface, suddenly emerged in the full glare of public knowledge.

In other countries, as we may remember, that led to resignations. Here in Malta, that has led to countless diatribes, angry Rights of Replies, partisan statements by the Department of Information which completely tarnish its reputation, and so on – all except resignations.

The government tries very hard to go about its duty but there is this blockage in the middle, this elephant in the room, that it is very hard to go round it as if it were not there.

Ministers have taken to avoid the press, knowing they will be asked about the issue. Other ministers, when cornered, get by a mumbled and jumbled reply. No one has the guts to stand up and ask for clear answers, at least where the public can hear them. Maybe they reserve such questions for Cabinet meetings. Maybe.

Other than that, most ministers have fallen silent, except for the ritual bashing of the Opposition.

Not even the prime minister himself, could bring himself to address the issue in his normal Sunday morning meeting with the party faithful.

And that left the man in the eye of the storm himself, Minister Konrad Mizzi who refused to give an interview to our sister Sunday paper, and who till today, as we say on our front page, refuses to answer two quite direct questions.

Instead, the minister loads up with bluster and heavyhandedness. He is aided and abetted by a Department of Information that is supinely overruled by the minister and blindly reproduces what it is sent by the minister or his staff.

It has been said right at the beginning of Panamagate that the longer this case continues, the more government remains in denial, the more it will harm the government. Government refused to face up to the case, maybe hoping the case would blow over. Instead, it has grown and grown and the minister is now exhibiting what beings do when they are cornered – bite back.

What we are seeing beggars description. It is straight out of Azerbaijan, or any other tinpot dictator-state. We now have the State apparatus turning on a fierce critic of the government and accusing him of corruption in his own building permit. We have the party TV station flying a drone over this house in particular. We have what may well be a manufactured scandal just to hide the real scandal.

And at the same time we get silence, total, absolute silence in response to the questions this media has been asking.

Once again, yesterday has shown that all the spin will not cover up Panamagate.