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It wasn't just one of those expected brickbats thrown from the usual suspects in the opposition Pheu Thai Party. This time it came from MR Pridiyathorn Devakula, former deputy premier and ex-finance minister, who is supposed to know a thing or two about the inner goings-on of the deal.

In his weekly column published on this page on Monday, MR Pridiyathorn ended the opinion piece with several provocative questions:

Why did the PM not state his opposition before the move of the GLO (Government Lottery Office) board, which would have been much easier to block then than now? Who is he so afraid of that he decides not to go along with this issue that has passed the scrutiny of a number of ministers?

Or is it the fear that the ongoing well of support will dry up?

With such fear, who would believe that he is really a supporter of anti-corruption?

It's probably not Pridiyathorn's scepticism over the PM's seriousness in tackling corruption that infuriated Abhisit in the first place. Rather, what really irked him was the suggestion that the Democrat Party leader was probably so concerned about the disruption of the flow of funds to his party that he had decided to terminate the online lottery system before it had any chance of being put into practice.

In other words, Pridiyathorn was saying that those who were benefiting from the old government's lottery allocation system were the Democrat Party's financiers. And if their sources of income were threatened by the online lottery scheme, the Democrat Party would stand to suffer.

You guessed it: A few senior Democrats wasted no time in unleashing a torrent of counter-attacks against Pridiyathorn, taking to task his statements and questioning his "ulterior motives".

Abhisit himself was hugely perturbed. He categorically denied the allegation, saying: "My stand on this issue has always been clear from the outset. I am against legalising illegal activities. There are no conflicts of interest for me, whether they are related to legal or underground lottery schemes."

The real issue, however, wouldn't be whether the public in general takes the allegations seriously. The same charge has been hurled earlier by the opposition party, and the same verbal counter-attack has been heard before.

The crux of the problem therefore lies in how seriously Abhisit will carry on his so-called "war against social vices" now that he has more or less staked his political future on holding on to his moral high ground.

On the one hand, most cynics will tell you that they wouldn't be surprised if certain politicians are also illegal gambling-den owners - or vice versa.

But then, Abhisit's record on this score has been reasonably clean. His assertion that he won't buckle under the influence of "underground activities" therefore won't be seen as just a politically expedient claim. And this is probably the first concrete sign that he could go against the grain to live up to his pledge to be himself.

But if Abhisit is really serious about wiping out social vices, he hasn't demonstrated the necessary degree of passion and devotion to a genuine national campaign to get right down to all the "underground elements" that are, in fact, the sources of all the major crime cases in the country.

At best, it has been a defensive kind of afterthought. It's certainly not a full-fledged campaign to set a new agenda of morality for the country. Unless he comes up with a real master plan to tackle the serious ills that plague the country, allegations of the link between politicians and legally shady businesses will be hard to deflect.

Even if he can convince most people that he is determined to stand by his anti-gambling principle, it will be a tall order indeed for him to be able to put a stamp of guarantee for the whole party, let alone his coalition partners.

But since he has made it one of the most important planks of his Social Policy Platform, Abhisit has no choice but to go all the way to prove that the lottery decision isn't just an isolated case aimed only at undoing the Thaksin legacy.

If anything, it's all about the Abhisit legacy now.