It seemed to be perfectly timed and planned. To many it looked as if it was meant to be “the night of the long knives” when following his blip at Birzebbuga, Alfred Sant would hopefully be caught off guard and end up tactically overwhelmed by Lawrence Gonzi’s would-be overpowering blitz and onslaught on state television.

I had reports that Nationalist strategists were even counting on the fact that had things turned out this way, the budget would have almost become an irrelevance and the chat show could have easily paved the way for “the final countdown”.

The only snag is that things turned out completely differently. As the general public at large has realised by now.

Let us begin with Lou Bondi. Apart from sharing his tastes of rock music – or vice versa, since he once described me as his ‘musical guru’ during the glory days when I had introduced rock to the airwaves – I find the man culturally engaging. Nobody can accuse him of having hidden agendas. Because he tends to wear his political prejudices and biases on his sleeve, whether he happens to be wearing designer clothes or whether he decides to come across as a modern day Larry King in shirt-sleeves and braces, as he did Monday week.

A political analyst was recently so naïve that he concluded that the Bondiplus debate was so heated that Lou saw it slipping out of his control. I have my different views about that but out of respect of libel laws, I will merely say that to my mind he was more overtly political than Pierre Portelli was the day after when presenting Bil-Fatti on Net TV although he remains charming and engaging in his own peculiar way. Bondi has every right to play his own particular ball game. The only snag is that rather than doing it on a political party TV station he does it on state television at your and my expense …as taxpayers!

A number of people watched the programme with trepidation not because they had lost confidence in Alfred Sant but simply because it was so evident that right now the Nationalists’ psychological warfare knows no limit. Particularly when every move and every government decision is taken with shameless and cynical electioneering considerations in mind.

No matter how much they repeat their Vision 2015 mantra it is evident for all to see that this is nothing but a string of glorified buzzwords meant to paper over their current deficiencies and past gross mistakes for purely short-term gain. Their message is simple for all to understand. Elect us for another two terms and hopefully all our ‘sins’ will be forgotten!

Things went awry when in spite of having what looked like a ‘sympathetic’ anchorman in the chair, Dr Gonzi found himself reduced so pathetically out of sync and distanced from present day realities as a result of Alfred Sant’s cool but magnificent bounce back, that in spite of having started off by having the dice hopefully loaded in his favour, he ended up mumbling and stuttering, badly betrayed by his own body language, which gave proof of more than a fair measure of unease, edginess and discomfort on his part.

While it took Alfred Sant only a few words to deflate the onslaught on what was by his own modest admission, his somewhat lacklustre performance at Birzebbuga, Dr Gonzi should have realised that in politics, as in soccer everyone can have an off day. Ask Alex Ferguson when he used the wrong approach with Coventry. This does not mean that my favourite team Manchester United is still not in time to bounce back and remain in the running to clinch the Premiership title!

The PM’s slip-ups and goofs during the Bondi show are endless.

Hours before he dismissed Tony Abela’s out of place comments on the Granaries as a joke only to ‘reveal’ on TV that in actual fact he had reprimanded him for speaking the way he did.

His repeated insistence that there is no VAT on education convinced no one, especially those parents who are actually paying it through their nose. I have been stopped even in Republic Street, Valletta by angry parents who I did not know eager to show me the amount of VAT they had just had to pay on education related material.

Dr Gonzi was left literally speechless in the wake of John Dalli’s new claim that rather than resigning from minister of his own free will he was urged or asked or euphemistically encouraged to do so!

There was a touch of dishonesty when Dr Gonzi tried to give the impression that while he is almost a political virgin, Alfred Sant has been around far too long. Dr Sant was quick to point out that they first ran for the general elections in the same year. With one difference. That Dr Gonzi did not manage to get elected while Dr Sant managed to get through, thanks to a by-election.

If Lawrence Gonzi felt obliged to give preference to international bankers’ praise rather than families’ concerns, why was he so weak in defending the serious accusations levelled against Malta by Transparency International regarding our shameful corruption record? It was a pity that by the transmission date we had not yet learnt that Malta had also slipped to 20th place in the EU healthcare list. Since it would have been interesting to see how the PM would have countered that revelation!

If Dr Gonzi attaches so much importance to what foreign personalities and institutions have to say about us why did the DOI or the Finance Ministry, for which he is responsible, not dare publish the whole IMF report on Malta in its entirety but merely limited themselves to publishing an executive summary?

Why did he not rebut Moody’s claim in writing that “the political cycle (in Malta) could lead to a loosening of policy in the 2008 budget given that parliamentary elections are due at the latest by mid-2008 and that the ruling party continues to trail in opinion polls….”

But back to Lou Bondi. It smacks of nothing but political prejudice to ask Dr Sant whether he considers himself a “mazzra ma’ ghonq il-Partit Laburista?” That is nothing but Net TV talk which seems to suggest that my friend Lou sometimes remains mired in the days when he formed part of the PN strategy team together with Roger deGiorgio and Lou’s cousin Minister Austin Gatt. I do not know if this is a genuine slip-up but all this begs the question: With Xandir Malta or TVM reduced to such a pitiful state who really needs Net TV?

The problem with Lawrence Gonzi is that apart from his single-minded obsession to cling to power he is letting speculation run riot to the detriment of the country’s stability with all the uncertainties he is creating about the election date.

This apart he is not even realising – or else if he is, he is indifferent to the fact, that his obsession with changing public perception of the party is overwhelming what should be the smooth running of the country. This is the ploy that Alfred Sant diligently exposed as he bounced back thanks to his excellent form. Having the dice loaded against him – as was evident for all to see – made him come across even stronger.

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Leo Brincat is the opposition spokesman for foreign affairs and IT