Is Labour already fed up of governing?

The reason I am asking is that for several months now, the Muscat administration keeps putting its foot in it. I’m starting to think they are not really that keen on a second term.

They are completely not reading the public mood and just continue making the wrong calls. Take the recent nominations of the two magistrates, both of which should never have been made for reasons which are obvious to all. And yet, mystifyingly, mysteriously, these reasons do not seem that obvious to the Labour government which, in the case of the Speaker’s daughter Dr Caroline Farrugia Frendo, they are just ploughing ahead and going through with. The other candidate, Dr Ingrid Zammit Young, at least had the grace to withdraw her own nomination when it was clear that she did not fit the criteria.

These nominations follow a series of really, but really, bad appointments to public office which make me wonder what they are thinking. Or, let me re-phrase that, is ANYONE actually thinking? What always astounds me (apart from the actual appointment) is whether they honestly think voters are just going to go along and accept anyone and anything without a murmur. Hate to break it to you JM, but those days are long gone.

A combination of an electorate whose high hopes were dashed, a proliferation of way too many broken promises, plus the swiftness by which social media can track down who’s connected to who, has made it virtually impossible for this government to just slide things by us without anyone noticing. It was far, far easier in the days when jobs were given to the boys rather more discretely and only emerged many years after the fact. Those who were in the inner circle during the consecutive PN administrations will know what I’m talking about. But these days? It’s not so easy to appoint your canvasser’s wife’s cousin (just to give an example). We have become used to expecting and demanding more accountability and competence, and rightly so.

Of course, there are still many around who shrug off nepotism and cronyism simply as “the way things are done here”, knowing full well that when it’s “their” party’s turn to take the helm, the cycle will just perpetuate itself again. But for every person who brushes this aside, there are others who are well and truly over this status quo. Change? What change? The only change we have seen is in the names, but other than that, half the country is still getting all the goodies, while the other half is left seething in frustration. No wonder so many people I speak to say that they are not even going to bother to vote for anyone next time.

The cosying up to developers and construction magnates at the expense of people’s wellbeing and what is left of our green areas, has also left many with a bitter taste. The only positive thing I have seen lately is Muscat telling Palumbo Dockyard to change its attitude towards the Senglea residents who took the company to court over excessive noise. Do we dare hope to see more of the latter rather than the former?

But where this government is really going off-track is in the way it is handling its public image. The much talked about Le Iene video which was making the rounds was unfortunate, not because of the Italian journalists’ coverage or whether the Italian company is still owed the money it is claiming, but because of the way Muscat handled them. Now granted, in the video Muscat was taken unawares, but there were so many better ways he could have dealt with the journalists. His replies should have been more carefully worded and more tactful towards the Italians in general. As the Prime Minister, his whole demeanour needed to be taken down a notch. As it is he looked like he was exchanging banter with a buddy over whose football team is best.

For someone who admires Obama so much (as could be seen by the way he copied his election campaign) Muscat could learn a thing or two from how the US President handles the media – with low-key charm, complete humility and not a trace of affectation. I invite you to watch how he spoke to Ellen Degeneres on her show, when she showered him with praise about how much he has helped the gay community during his term of office.

What could have been an embarrassing, cringeworthy, sycophantic moment was saved by his extraordinary ability to say the right thing and shift the focus away from himself. He not only thanked her graciously but turned it around and told her that, when it came to “winning people’s hearts and minds”, it was she who had done the most good. There was no artifice, just a very genuine response.

I find it surprising that a party which was so good at communicating its message just a few short years ago has already faltered so much. And now, like a cherry on the proverbial cake, we have Glenn Bedingfield’s decision to start a blog in which he goes after people who are connected in some way to the PN (or who even stick up for the PN). He lifts their photos off FB and makes snide and nasty comments. Really? Is the Labour party sure that it wants to go down this route? Because if this administration has already utterly cocooned itself from the general population to such an extent that it thinks that this is a good idea, then it is more cut off from the nation’s pulse than I thought.

Read my lips. Most decent people abhor this kind of thing. There is enough ugliness roaming around on the Internet without adding more to it. The only way to counter that ugliness is to ignore it, rise above it, and be better than that. It is particularly unacceptable (not to mention highly ironic) that it is coming from Bedingfield, who is the PM’s own communications consultant. What does that tell us but that Muscat is tacitly approving of these ad hominem attacks? If he does not approve of them, then he better shut the whole thing down real quick.

Unless, that is, he is already tired of being Prime Minister and has decided that five years are more than enough.