The Labour Party has clearly decided that animals are the new children, and so the Fearless Leader must be seen to feel concern for them so as to attract the votes of those who really do.

‘Feel’ is a word that fits most uncomfortably with Joseph Muscat, whatever the scenario. One is left with the vague sensation that he does not experience emotions so much as simulate them. The only exception is the sheer, unadulterated self-satisfied smugness that explodes all over his face when he is in your classic tin-pot dictator’s situation: exalted on a stage or at the centre of an arena, surrounded by protectors and with scalps ostensibly captured from the enemy camp extolling his virtues and fawning at his feet.

Yet there are some emotions which Muscat quite obviously never learned how to simulate, either because they are outside his immediate experience, or because he is such a poor actor, or even because there are times when he can’t get himself to do it. I’m going to leave aside those unfortunate attempts at displays of affection with Mrs Leader on the public stage. They are actually painful, and have served little purpose other than to create a passing wave of sympathy for a woman who otherwise irritates a great deal with her pushiness.

I’m going to stick with the animals. At some point early in the campaign, it was decided that Joseph Muscat should emulate pretty much most of Barack Obama’s photo opportunities and other PR stunts. There is a famous photograph of Obama with the White House Labrador. So a dog was found for Muscat to pose with – the same dog that starred on one of the first Labour billboards, a cute black and white chap with a keen appearance. The photograph duly appeared, and unlike Obama’s, it bombed. Muscat, in a suit and tie, sits frozen in trepidation on a wall, leaning back away from the dog which sits at his feet, looking at a ball which he is holding high out of the animal’s reach. Everything about his posture says, “I don’t like this dog, I don’t want to be here, God am I bored, and isn’t this what you are supposed to do with these things?”

As somebody who takes dogs for granted as part of life – I have two who are my constant companions – I can spot somebody who has no feeling for them even if I were not able to interpret the textbook body language of hostility and apprehension.

Compare that to Obama’s photograph, in which he is down on the ground with the dog (an added bonus being that the dog is actually his). He’s got his jacket off, he’s tousling the dog’s head, the dog is delighted to be with him and he is laughing. He’s somebody who’s used to being around dogs and knows what to do. The picture was a success because it is happy, easy and natural – even if it took hours to set up, you still can’t fake comfortable interaction with animals just as you can’t fake comfortable interaction with children.

Undaunted, Muscat’s campaign team organised, a few days ago, a visit to the Island Sanctuary which keeps abandoned dogs and tries to home them. The press described it as a “lightning visit”. He posed with the volunteers, and this time took great care not to try posing with any actual dogs. He was photographed looking at them with vague boredom through the metal mesh, and then somebody unfortunately chose to bring out a poodle to meet him. Again, he made no attempt to touch it, and froze instead, trying to look mildly interested.

If the aim was to appeal to people who actually like dogs, what these tactics told us is that he is not a fellow traveller. He doesn’t like them, and probably finds them entirely unnecessary. I imagine he belongs to the class of people who think of animals, but especially dogs, as dirty carriers of disease and plentiful smudges on the household linen.

Still pressing on, his public relations people took him to the Ghadira Nature Reserve, where he again looked consummately bored, but took the opportunity of announcing that his government could consider a ‘Wildlife Crime Unit’. The slew of jokes was immediate. Would this be the Wildlife Crime Unit where you don’t have to wait in a queue to find a Labour policeman who you can ask to please lay off? Or maybe it will be the sort of Wildlife Crime Unit where you shoot a protected bird and get asked to throw the evidence in the bin so that action needn’t be taken against you.

Then he made another statement, which was quite absurd, and the absurdity of it highlighted by the quality of the reporting: “On hunting, Dr Muscat reiterated that no illegal hunting would be allowed.” Come again? If it’s illegal, then it follows that it’s not allowed. Perhaps something was lost in translation, but I can’t see any situation in which a political leader (or anyone who knows grammar) would say, “Ah, yes, we are going to allow illegal hunting.” I suppose what was meant is that his government will not lift the ban on certain types of illegal hunting, but you cannot be sure given that it’s Labour. After all, this is the party leader who felt under no obligation at all to report to the police an eyewitness account of drug-handling at a Labour club. Labour is a law unto itself.