Biblical, isn’t it?

There is a familiar Biblical saying that goes something like this: 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone'.

That, of course, was uttered by Jesus Christ himself.

Now, I'm the last person to quote the Bible to support my argument. Indeed, it would be rather hypocritical of me to indulge in quoting from Scripture. But I'd hazard to say that the New Testament, is far more credible than the political manifestos of the two parties (or rather, three).

Now, I'm sure you were waiting for my first reference to Lawrence Gonzi. Well... here we go.  The Prime Minister said that the Toni Abela recording proves beyond any doubt that old ways for Labour have not died and that Labour is all about these nasty episodes.

We then had Beppe Fenech Adami in a separate press conference warning mothers and mothers to be to be aware of the 'drug infested' Labour clubs and lashing out at Toni Abela. He could of course have added all the drinking holes in Malta and Gozo. I'm sure he knows that the drug culture is prevalent wherever people spend their free time and that there are no boundaries to the plague of drugs.

Now, hitting out at Abela and portraying him as the incarnation of 'immoral' has become the in thing. Of course - and happily enough for the PN - this episode has served to deflect some attention from the oil scandal.

But let us give the PN the benefit of the doubt.

Now that party clubs host a motley crowd which includes probable drug abusers is not an illusion, but a fact.  To all of a sudden wake up and castigate someone about it is naturally questionable. More so, when the source of the recording are people who were being questioned by Toni Abela for their unsuitability.

Well, anyone who knows Ritchie Vella will know who he hangs out with, and how information can be passed on. Because as everyone knows, most of our party clubs - whether they are PN or PL - are just glorified bars, and harldy centres of political discourse. 

And I have no problem in saying that most of the time, the people who hang out in these clubs are traditionally men who like to drink, gossip and a hundred and one other things that I never dreamt of doing.

Now, everyone should first of all rewind back to 1989.

Gonzi was speaker of the House, while simultaneously - I believe - still serving as a legal advisor at Mizzi House. Dr Gonzi will of course remember when Toni Abela, together with Wenzu Mintoff, faced 900 angry Labour delegates and denounced corruption and violence in the Labour Party. Abela was MLP president at the time, while Mintoff was MLP deputy. They were both kicked out of the party and then they co-founded Alternattiva.

Just four years prior - in 1985 - they took a stand against Lorry Sant and his cronies. The result was that they were treated like Quislings by the Labour Party, but embraced as superheroes by the PN.

Throughout all this period they were featured on the front pages of Il-Mument and In-Nazzjon and hailed as champions of a just cause. Years passed - in fact some 16 years - and the inseparable Toni and Wenzu returned to the Labour party. 

I have known Toni for years. He is a cultured person, more well read than most and good company.  He is a liberal person, full of new ideas, idealistic and honest. And when I say honest, I mean it. A bubbly, kind person who isn't terribly concerned about his dress code or about appearing elegant.

He also has a brusque, impulsive streak and that consideration, perhaps, has allowed his political adversaries to depict him as the embodiment of Old Labour. He has one important virtue: he is a campaigner against what is wrong and those who have been wronged. And he has no problem in facing a barman and telling him to leave.

I doubt whether Louis Grech would have the proverbial cojones to do what Toni Abela is doing. That, I guess, is what he meant by "doing something different". He is too suave to even consider confronting a troglodyte who stands behind a bar.

Toni Abela is the right man for the job. He is not a yes man and he believes in taking action. I know he feels uncomfortable being a politician and serving in a rigid structure, and yet he knows that the best way to get things done is to be a politician. That has been his biggest compromise.

Now, did Toni Abela do the right thing? He is being accused of not informing the police. That is a tricky one. Yes, we could go into a long discussion and say that Toni should have informed the police. 

What I do know is that the Commissioner of Police did ask the question to Toni Abela. And I do know that the answers given to the commissioner and Assistant Commissioner Joe Cachia were satisfactory. And the commissioner did not see any reason to consider criminal action against Abela.

I also know that Toni Abela considered his position. He even pondered on resigning. Another thing worth pointing out is that Toni Abela was distraught after his difficult task and efforts to keep the clubs clean, take action and face this character assassination. He became even more depressed when he realised that the information came from people who included, among their number, someone who had been disciplined and asked to leave from the Labour Party.

Should he resign? Good question. And a difficult one for me to reply to. I asked whether Austin Gatt should have resigned as a result of the oil scandal. I will have to ask Toni Abela the same question when I interview him on Reporter next Tuesday.

I will be tough, even though I know that it will be difficult. But it beckons me to ask: in this drive to clean and change the party clubs into proper centres, has there been the same fervour to address the problem within the PN party clubs?

I also think that this idea of asking the police to investigate is now reaching ridiculous proportions. Within the context of this oil scandal I have often been asked: why now? And my answer has to be: "If I have a story we must publish it, and not sleep on it."

"I was not sleeping on the story for ages, I only had some 36 hours to work on it."

When the story was published I could have mentioned so many other names and let the whole thing spill over and just explode. I did not. I tried to be uncharacteristically sober, and not impulsive.  I know much more than has been published. Much much more: and some it really does not make sense.

I tried not to implicate people, though I knew some of them could have been. When the Toni Abela tapes were published, within seconds we had them up on online. We did not think twice. It hurt me, but we did it.

Yesterday I was told that Lou Bondi - who was seen at the Stamperija (PN HQ) well before the Austin Gatt press conference - was in his MaltaToday-bashing mode. I was driving and did a U-turn, and literally raced to the PN HQ.

Gatt was once again on some conspiratorial trip about MaltaToday emails not being authentic. And of some link to manipulators and the PL. As I walked in, Lou Bondi and Norman Vella were huffing and puffing. I guess you do that when you are bored and have nothing better to do, or when you start worrying that your 'party' has had its day.

But really, Bondi and Vella are simply intolerant to anyone who questions their line of thought or their credibility.

Bondi is obviously dying for any chance to hit out at MaltaToday. It is really not about the PN but about those who question his bias, his political agenda and more importantly, his unsuitability as a TVM host.

It is not really important, and Bondi is not the issue. The real issues are usually skirted, and what we are trying to do here is to bring the real issues forward.

It's as simple as that.