All hail the working-class hero?

Adrian Delia posing in a village bar for his end-of-year message is totally in character with the persona of a former football club president.

The Nationalist Party leader is acquainted with the atmosphere of a village bar that serves pastizzi, hobz biz-zejt and tea in a glass while clients chatter about the ordinary things in life.

But using this location as a backdrop for his political message just 12 months ago could have easily earned him rebuke from the PN’s top brass.

It was in February last year when former PN president Ann Fenech said Joseph Muscat’s jaunt with three European prime ministers at the famed Rabat pastizzi shop, Is-Serkin, was ‘crude and common’.

On Facebook, Fenech had expressed disbelief at how Muscat could take fellow prime ministers “for tea in a glass and a pastizz on a paper napkin, in a room with bathroom tiles”.

She subsequently apologised for the offence she caused to many people but the language used in her post was telling of the elitist attitude that had taken hold in the PN.

Not what Ann Fenech would have prescribed: reviled 12 months ago, the pastizz is back in fashion at the PN

The PN under Simon Busuttil appeared to distance itself from the cultural and linguistic sinews that bind Maltese society.

The party had failed to connect with the majority and even among those who supported it, there was strong discomfort with the language used by the leadership.

The strong reaction of disdain to Fenech’s pastizzi mishap, even among Nationalist supporters, was perhaps the strongest representation of this discomfort.

It was this aloofness from the ordinary language, the concerns and aspirations of the common people that Delia wanted to push aside by appearing in a village bar. The video was just as much a message to people within the PN as it was to the rest of the country.

Bar the mannequin-like posture of the people appearing alongside Delia in the video – TV producer and former Malta Independent content director Pierre Portelli would do well to find some good actors next time around – the PN leader wanted to portray his ‘new way’ as one that understood the aspirations and concerns of ordinary people.

It was a continuation of Delia’s leadership campaign message to reconnect the party with its grassroots and the country.

It appears Delia wants to emulate Eddie Fenech Adami’s populist move soon after becoming PN leader in 1977 when he declared that the PN’s “heart was with the workers”. Fenech Adami wanted to shed the image that the PN was simply a party of lawyers and went on to position the party at the centre-looking-to-the-left, becoming the PN’s most successful leader to date.

Delia has realised that the PN needs to rediscover ‘Malteseness’ before its message of change can start finding fertile ground among the masses but to do so will require more than just cosmetic video appearances.

Understanding aspirations and concerns is one thing; proposing policies to address them is a harder nut to crack at a time of prosperity.

Delia is trying to exit the everything-is-negative attitude adopted by his predecessor as he acknowledges the prevalent feel-good attitude.

However, in doing so, Delia has to be careful of not appearing complacent with a government and Prime Minister his party was describing as the most corrupt only a few months ago.

By subtly rejecting his predecessor’s attitude, Delia may be crafting his own brand of leadership but just as the PN learned in the last election, identity crafted on this basis alone may not be enough to get people interested. This is where meaningful policy-making and ideological direction are required.

Although the village bar could provide important policy insights, it may not be enough to understand the complexities of a changing society where the new titotla is Facebook and where 12-year-olds addicted to their Playstation will vote in four years’ time.