One of the most striking aspects of the past year and a half has been the amazing way the administration closes ranks when it is attacked.

There have been instances in the past when there was some sort of quite timid debate inside the governing party when the allegations of corruption began to surface. We remember some timid quotes by Evarist Bartolo questioning the top levels of MFSA and even a stray comment by Edward Scicluna that questioned the advisability of a minister holding an account in a dubious jurisdiction.

But as the stories multiplied and the protests grew, these stray voices fell silent. There is now, one can say, a monolithic defence of the government across the board from the bottom to the top, from the supporter out on the streets to the person in a position of trust in some ministry to the backbencher MP etc.

When push came to shove in the House of Representatives, the Labour MPs voted solidly against any motion presented by the Opposition even in the face of blatant scandals that were reverberating across the world and that blackened Malta’s name. There was not a single abstention, let alone a negative vote.

The only time when there was a sort of mute discussion was when the Deputy Leader was being chosen and when Helena Dalli who was clearly Joseph Muscat’s favourite for the post was beaten by Chris Fearne and one suspects the real reason lay in the forced march to gay rights, civil unions etc sponsored by Dalli.

Otherwise it’s wall to wall support and defence, the government right or wrong, even in the face of international criticism and condemnation.

The government and its party live by spin, artfully concocted so as to put smoke in the eyes of the supporters. Thus you get supporters blithely asserting that the international storm about Malta’s financial services sector is a storm created and abetted by the three PN MEPs and their allies in the European Parliament even when there are also Socialists from the PES who have criticized Malta.

In another context it’s called denying the stark truth and that has become the rule inside PL. Not only have any timid dissident voices been silenced but also people react with anger against anyone who dares question the official line, or who defends the memory of the slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

What Caruana Galizia had to say she said it, it’s there, but these people, mainly victims of her articles, are still red-hot with anger and it does not look like it’s a fake anger. That is the only way they can keep the forces in line. It soon becomes equivalent to denying what may have been said by Daphne but also what has since been proved over and over again.

There is also the passionate search for any slight quote which might undermine the arguments about corruption, even the slightest inflection that can be used by the government spin machine to deflect the attack, find an alternative target and create a diversion.

There is also the willing cooperation by other media to skip around the real news and the drawing of conclusions which would be negative about the administration, like remembering the past infractions by the PN governments even if these are in contrast petty.

However, all this absence of a real discussion will have one inevitable outcome. When the chips come down, the whole PL edifice will come tumbling down with no saving of part or parts of it for an eventual reconstruction.