It would have been enough to announce last week’s fuel price revisions through a brief press release, according to government MP Marlene Farrugia.

Writing in today’s edition of The Malta Independent, Dr Farrugia argued that the way the revisions were announced instead – a press conference at the Auberge de Castille courtyard, a venue typically reserved for significant announcements and for joint press conferences with foreign statesmen – was the latest gaffe by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s communication office.

“This time round it was Joseph Muscat himself who was shoved into a press conference anticipated to deal with a nation changing announcement, when a brief press release by Enemalta would have sufficed. As things happened, the good news lost its flavour before it hit the eardrum of the electorate and instead of generating positive energy, it generated an unsavoury dose of derision,” the MP wrote.

She insisted that the government’s public relations, rather than Dr Muscat, were mostly to blame, disagreeing that the Prime Minister brought it on himself through his repeated references to “great good news” on the horizon.

“(They) know that the devil is in the detail and that credibility points are difficult to gain but very easily lost,” she said.

Dr Farrugia went on to state that with each blow to the credibility of either government or opposition, more people were turning away in disgust from the way politics has “metamorphosed from the instrument to get things done well... to a politics of  rhetoric, marketing and irresponsible psychological manipulation of the electorate.”

She maintained that the amount of money “squandered on adverts proclaiming the excellence and benevolence” of the government will not prevent the public from voting out a government that does not improve its standard of living.

“Conversely, a government choosing to spend crucial thousands of taxpayers’ money on advertising itself, engaging  people on public service on their party allegiance rather than on competence and potential productivity, as has happened with past PN governments and is happening now, will cause excruciating pain to an electorate made up of individuals who may potentially be refused life saving cancer treatment abroad for lack of funds.”