ICAC Operation Rosny LIVE updates: Former Strathfield councillor Sharangan Maheswaran returns for likely final day of public hearings

“Did you fix the testicle?” was the blackmailers’ code for the 2004 coup against the Strathfield mayor, Alfred Tsang.

In the modern version, which has been unspooling in all its tawdry detail before the current corruption inquiry, the alleged blackmailers were buoyed by the emergence of a “King of Swords reversed”, courtesy of a tarot card reader who’d been consulted to determine the timing of the mayoral coup against Matthew Blackmore.

Although the plots were separated by almost two decades, they both allegedly involved blackmail, dirty deals, double-crosses and a secret tape recording thrown in for good measure.

And, in both cases, the mayors alleging blackmail went straight to the Independent Commission Against Corruption.