The real surprise is the fragility of superman Joseph Muscat.

Ever since this Panama Papers business began, a very different Muscat has come to the fore: going about his business as though there was no problem in the country, savaging the Opposition when cornered in the House, holding off passing judgement on the man he chose to be Deputy Leader of his party and never, ever, behaving as a responsible prime minister should be.

Others have drawn their own conclusion from this - that the three (Joseph Muscat, Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri) were in cahoots on this matter, that the latter two were hiding the former behind them, and that they are busy protecting each other’s back, which would explain, according to this interpretation, Muscat’s lack of initiative, going about his business as if this was not his business as well.

There is no doubt that this interpretation has been forming in people’s minds, obviously fuelled by the Opposition’s take, and this can be seen not just in the crowds that have twice met in Valletta to protest, but also in the comments on the social media and, above all, in the decreasing trend of Muscat’s and the Labour Party’s popularity in the polls that have been commissioned, although this trend is just at its beginning.

But even among those who have not subscribed to the Opposition’s understated suspicion regarding the genesis of the crisis, there is a huge question mark that has not been addressed and fully explained so far: why this inactivity by the Prime Minister?

Other leaders have been more resourceful, maybe even more hypocritical, I don’t know. Take David Cameron, for instance. He is, in a way, more personally involved in this than Joseph Muscat (as far as we know, at least) in that he has been found out.

Prime Minister David Cameron last week released a brief summarising his tax returns over the past six years to try and cool the anger created by the Panama Papers scandal surrounding his personal finances.

The Panama Papers file collection belonging to offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca were leaked, which then named high profile figures that use offshore tax havens. The British prime minister was pulled into the scandal as it was found that his late father, Ian Cameron, had an offshore investment fund, Blairmore, a client of the firm which didn't pay tax in the UK.    

After days of cagey responses from Downing Street as to whether the prime minister had benefitted from the fund, he eventually admitted he had and has now released  returns, which cover the tax years from 2009/10 to 2014/15, in a bid to be more ‘open and transparent’.

Cameron and his wife made a £19,000 profit from the sale of shares in Blairmore Holdings in 2010 and Cameron’s return shows that he declared a £9,501 share of the profit, which was below the £10,000 threshold for capital gains tax at the time.

However, the document also reveals the British prime minister received £500,000 tax-free from his parents, which has caused fresh outrage.

Cameron inherited £300,000 from his late father in 2011, which attracted no inheritance tax as it was below the chargeable threshold.

However, in the same year, the prime minister’s tax return shows he received two £100,000 payments given to him by his mother, Mary Cameron.

Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnel pointed out that this means the prime minister has effectively inherited £500,000 from his parents but has not had to pay any tax on it.

David Cameron is to announce that under new rules, firms that aid tax evasion will be held criminally responsible, as he faces MPs following a row about his investment practices.

The new legislation, which is expected to be contained in the Queen's Speech in May, will mean that firms will be held liable if they fail to stop their employees from facilitating tax evasion.

Cameron will be hoping to draw a line under the Panama Papers row, which has seen his finances scrutinised. The move comes ahead of an international anti-corruption summit in London on 12 May and follows the announcement of a new task force aimed at investigating the evidence from the Panama Papers data leak. Proposals for the measure were announced in March 2015 and all this comes at the worst possible time for Cameron, with the EU in/out referendum less than two months away and with the Brexit side appearing to be in the lead.

Meanwhile, short of pulling a rabbit out of his hat tomorrow in parliament, Muscat has not done even nearly as much. All he has said so far is that he is awaiting the results of an audit by an unspecified international audit firm on Konrad Mizzi’s tax affairs, and that he will take a decision later on.

He has been like the proverbial rabbit caught in a car’s headlights as the juggernaut of international public opinion comes rolling towards him. By now, his party, at the receiving end of attacks, insinuations and innuendos for the past six weeks is roaring in pain and crying out for revenge, being silly and threatening at times.

We have had ministers distancing themselves from Konrad Mizzi and even one minister (Evarist Bartolo) who, while distancing himself from Mizzi, has come out with a blunt attack on the head of the MFSA, Joe Bannister (even I have been arguing for a succession policy at MFSA without accusing Mr Bannister of involvement in offshore jurisdictions), which then brought Mr Bartolo under fire from his own colleagues in and out of Cabinet - a sorry state of affairs that will not have gone unnoticed in the small world of taxation competitiveness.

The Prime Minister has been nowhere - not there to defend the financial services sector; not there to promise more stringent regulation on people investing in dubious jurisdictions; not there to promise more stringent rules on holders of political office and their tax affairs.

Can he change all that in just one day - tomorrow? I doubt it.

The wider onslaught – from the Opposition and civil society itself – has, however, left the PN with one exposed flank - its Cedoli initiative. Edward Scicluna said it is a Ponzi scheme and that the three PN speakers who followed him – Claudio Grech, Mario de Marco (who, however, picked up an important statement by Scicluna) and Kristy Debono – did not even reply. The PL attack on the initiative was sharpened in a blunt speech by Silvio Schembri, who asked pertinent questions.

There is no doubt that the two issues do not cancel each other out – as the Labour Party will no doubt say tomorrow – and taking pot-shots at each other, though perhaps the aim of tomorrow’s exercise, will not exorcise the stigma of a minister investing in a dubious jurisdiction, nor the inexplicable inaction by the head of government who should be the first to defend the country’s financial services sector.