Do you remember Sai Mizzi’s only press conference? The one she gave with Joseph Muscat?

They had just announced an investment which should have made a significant difference to our economy. Did it? Nobody even really remembers the details of what was announced on that day. We only remember her struggling with the press while showering the room with pearls of wisdom. We particularly remember how she said, patronisingly, that we should judge her by what she did for us.

I do not want to focus on Sai Mizzi and her lucrative job. Others are doing this in a very creative manner. There is a Facebook group, inspired by her scandalous appointment, with nearly 1,500 friends and a website (www.saimizzi.com) which includes a Sai Mizzi Salary Calculator.

I’m mentioning Mizzi for another reason. This week, Norman Vella, while hosting his daily show on Radio 101, repeatedly played a sound bite from Sai Mizzi’s press conference. Vella wanted to highlight a Chinese saying which Mizzi quoted and which fits in perfectly with this week’s event, in Brussels, related to Leo Brincat,

“It is not what you say. It is what you do.”  

Because what Leo Brincat said last Monday in Brussels was, alas, the opposite of what he did in Malta.

I agree with this paper’s editorial on Tuesday. Brincat “scraped and scraped and finally he scraped through”. And “he disowned the Muscat government.” In fact I would add that, while scraping through, Brincat left everyone feeling very sore.

After last Monday, the cracks of division within Labour are more apparent. Surely, there are many others who, like Leo Brincat, wanted to vote against Konrad Mizzi but felt they had their hands tied. Like Brincat, some may have considered resignation while many more still think (to this very day) that Konrad Mizzi should have resigned and that Muscat should have made him do it.

Labour die-hards will obviously deny this. I will remind them of Leo Brincat’s determined look. He was finally free of cabinet responsibility and the Labour whip. Muscat gave him a job to do. Leo Brincat, after Toni Abela’s failure, was told to do what it takes because Muscat could not afford going to the presidency with another “F” grade in good governance and transparency. I really do believe Leo Brincat obeyed instructions. Of course, Muscat didn’t quite foresee how Brincat was going to interpret them.

Many did not even recognise the man who relentlessly dug the grave for Muscat’s political pride.

In order to rise out of the muck in which Muscat and his circle have sunk, Leo Brincat trampled over the united image which the marketing and strategy team had been working on for so long.

Since Leo Brincat openly admitted he was forced to vote in favour of Konrad Mizzi, despite his involvement in the Panama Papers, some are now questioning the EU institutions themselves. It is this very admission which should have made him fail because, as Sai Mizzi put it, “It is not what you say. It is what you do.”

I also found his declaration that he was never against the EU to be in total bad taste. Leo Brincat worked within the Labour Party which fought tooth and nail to keep Malta out of the European Union. Had he and his friends succeeded in keeping us out in 2004, we would have been out for at least a generation. If we had ever entered the EU, it would have been under far less favourable conditions.

He should have said that he had been wrong, that he had changed his mind, that he belatedly converted.

But it takes some cheek to tell the Maltese (and the Europeans) that we were mistaken about his position because he had never completely ruled out EU membership for Malta (not for eternity, just for a generation, you see).

Even Sai Mizzi knows better than that, Leo: “It is not what you say. It is what you do.”