When, on Thursday morning, we received a Department of Information notice that Prime Minister Robert Abela was to be interviewed by MaltaToday, and that it was going to be streamed live, it confirmed what we had been thinking since the night before – that Labour had realised that it had messed up badly and that the damage control exercise was about to start.

Like his predecessor, Abela does not like one-on-one interviews with the independent media. He is comfortable on TVM and One, where softballs are thrown at him. He is ready to answer questions by journalists as a footnote to events that he is called to participate in as head of government, but he has rarely accepted face-to-face, organised exchanges with journalists who have no strings attached to the Labour Party or to the publicly-owned media.

So the hastily-organised interview with Kurt Sansone on Thursday can only be interpreted as having been an attempt by the government to contain the fall-out from the heartless decision that had been taken a few hours before. On Wednesday, the government stubbornly refused to give the green light to a public inquiry on the death of Jean Paul Sofia, the 20-year-old who lost his life under the rubble of a building which collapsed in Kordin last December. Labour MPs voted against a motion presented by the Opposition and instead insisted on an expeditious conclusion to the magisterial inquiry.

The Prime Minister’s effort to calm the waters failed miserably. The more he tried to explain why in his opinion a public inquiry is not necessary – and he had an edge to his voice all throughout the interview that exposed how nervous he was – the more unconvincing he appeared. Barely allowing his interviewer to put in questions, Abela kept on rambling that a magisterial inquiry is enough, when he knows too well that this is not the case.

But Labour had put its foot in it a long time ago, and there was no way back. When Sofia’s mother, Isabelle Bonnici, had come up with the call for a public inquiry into the death of her son, Abela and Labour thought that it was something that would go away quickly. They dismissed it lightly, taking the stand that a magisterial inquiry was already taking place and it would have satisfied their thirst for justice. But the idea of a public inquiry, which can cover more ground than a magisterial inquiry, gathered momentum. The more Abela and Labour defended their position, the more the suspicions grew that they had something to hide and someone to protect.

Abela and Labour probably banked on a swift conclusion to the magisterial inquiry that would have given them the basis on which to take their next steps. But the magisterial inquiry was not concluded, and Abela felt compelled to write to the Chief Justice, last April, urging him to push the magistrate to finish her job. She did not and, in the meantime, the pressure on Abela and the government to give their assent to a public inquiry grew. Abela continued to resist, and this pushed the Nationalist Party to file a motion in Parliament, on which, as we know, Labour voted against.

An hour or so before Thursday’s interview was aired, the DOI had also made public a second letter which Abela wrote to the Chief Justice, urging him to see that the magistrate responsible for the magisterial inquiry concludes her duty in the shortest time possible. But, at this stage, Abela and Labour had public opinion against them. They won the vote on Thursday, but they lost so much respect.

The public is behind the idea of a public inquiry. It cannot understand why Abela and Labour are so adamantly against it. Over the past days, the social media has been awash with comments criticising the government, and these are coming even from people who are normally close to Labour. There have been efforts by top Labour exponents to divert attention away from the Sofia case, but they were futile.

For the second time this year, there is public outrage against Abela and Labour. The first time was last February, when a judge had annulled a deal which had seen the Labour government, when Joseph Muscat was still PM, hand over three public hospitals to the private sector. In the weeks that followed, Labour had its back to the wall and the crisis, with regard to that deal, is not over.

The Sofia case has probably caused more damage to Labour. While the hospitals’ deal fiasco was hard to understand for many, more people could relate to the plight of Jean Paul Sofia’s family. The death of a young man in the prime of his life is something that people can understand more.

Added to this, while Abela could always “blame” Muscat for the hospitals’ deal debacle, this time the political disaster is of his (Abela’s) own doing. He cannot say that it happened under a different administration. He cannot say he was not part of the decision, as he had done on the hospitals’ deal.

He is the one who has relentlessly resisted the idea of a public inquiry. He is the one who forced all Labour MPs to toe the party line. He is the one who could not look Sofia’s family in the eye as he walked out of Parliament.

With their vote last Wednesday, Labour has killed Jean Paul Sofia a second time.