The Prime Minister declared three days of national mourning for the death of a former Archbishop of Malta, and promptly jetted off for his Easter holidays, saying that he would miss the formal funeral for this Constitutional figure and that he would send in his stead not the deputy Prime Minister, Louis Grech, but the Minister of Education, Evarist Bartolo.

The sheer cynicism and contempt for institutions would be beyond belief were it not for the fact that we are used to the nasty, amoral and bitter Mintoffian from Burmarrad by now. Had the funeral been that of a business operator with many millions in the bank, a large yacht moored down at the marina, a private plane and an extensive portfolio of real estate – plus the sort of network he finds useful – more probably than not Muscat would have cancelled or postponed his plans and sat alongside the chief mourners at the funeral, making sure everybody sees him.

As for having himself represented by Evarist Bartolo: that is a calculated insult to the dead man and to the organisation he represented when alive and in office. Not only is Bartolo from that generation which holds religion in contempt and regards religious figures as enemies of the state, rather than simply adopting a live-and-let-live approach as those do who are not burdened by grudges and resentment. And in his official role as Minister of Education in a Labour government, Evarist Bartolo represents the historic war which the Labour government of 1981-1987 waged on the Roman Catholic Church when the man who is lying in his coffin was Archbishop of Malta and had to contend with them as they sought to close down church schools and the Labour Prime Minister of the time led a convoy of thugs, which later ransacked and lay waste to the Archbishop’s headquarters after forcing their way in.

For somebody who has such manifest lack of respect for institutions, for the Constitution, and everything they represent, Muscat is rather interested in symbolism and in the use of symbolism to wreak his paltry and bitter little revenge. He did the same during High Mass which marked the opening of the new legislature after he won office in 2013. Who did he select to take up the offering to the Archbishop? Why, Deborah Schembri, of course – the very same Deborah Schembri who had spearheaded the campaign for the Yes vote in the divorce referendum. Selecting somebody who is in favour of divorce is one thing – we all have our opinions, and they do not come into play in that context. But choosing the figurehead of the divorce movement was the nastiest sort of message possible. Only somebody extremely ill-mannered would have thought his abysmal manners to be smart and clever. It’s shocking how difficult those raised without manners find it to learn them along the way, and how reluctant they are to do so. It is as though the acquisition of good manners and civilised behaviour is a rejection of their background rather than part of their general education.

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The Prime Minister is drowning in the worst corruption scandal since 1987 and yet he chooses to play it cool by going off on holiday. This is another way of thumbing his nose at the concerned electorate and bystanders who live here and who, even though they do not have the vote, have vested interests in Malta and are watching what is happening with increasing dismay. Muscat’s contempt for the electorate – perhaps it is justified contempt given how easy he found it to con them; it is the contempt of the con artist for his victim – is even greater than his contempt for institutions and for Constitutional figures.

Of course we know that he isn’t cool at all. Over the last five weeks since the Panamagate scandal broke – yes, it has been that long already – Muscat has shed many kilos in weight and is looking sick and drained. It is not the look of genuine concern and worry for the state of the nation, but the look of fear. We have one thing for which to be thankful in this sordid mess: his cockiness had gone completely, and so have his clever Dick, tu quoque retorts. Now he is like a hunted animal, slipping away from the press and surrounding himself with security officers when he has no choice but to go about in public, as he did last Sunday in the hamlet of Dingli. He doesn’t know who has what information and where it might be, or when it will become public.

Two-thirds of his switcher vote has collapsed completely in the wake of the Panamagate revelations, largely because it was made of the sort of people who understood instantly, without further explanations being required, the significant of a cabinet minister and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff setting up companies in concert in the top-secret jurisdiction of Panama and then locking them up further behind a concrete wall in New Zealand. Muscat knows, too, that by now many people have worked out that there can be only one possible reason why he is defending Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri to the hilt, and why he won’t jettison them and save his government and his party. It’s not as though Schembri needed a secret company in Panama, after all, when he has one in the British Virgin Islands already, the existence of which he continues to hedge and fudge about.