Let’s leave aside the fact that Adrian Delia is a highly contentious choice because of his baggage, and make believe that he is as clean as a whistle, upright and thoroughly correct. Many of the problems he is facing now and has yet to face would be there still, growling in the dark. Those problems are caused by the fact that the man is not a politician, has never been in politics, has operated on the cusp between law and business all his life, and is now almost 50, with no political experience to speak of. And yet he is about to become leader of the Opposition in highly contentious times.

The fact that Delia is an outsider was sold by his circus troupe of hangers-on and Facebook fanatics as a real advantage, his unique selling-point, the very thing that made him fit for purpose and likely to be an amazing success at leading the Nationalist Party and the Opposition and, more to the point, scoring victory at the polls (that’s with the people who treat politics like a spectator sport in which they want their team to win and couldn’t care less how or what follows).

But those of us who actually know something about politics and even a little bit about human psychology and organisational behaviour regarded that view as totally cracked, which in fact, it is. We could see straight away what the problems would be at a practical level of having somebody lead a major political party when he was never involved in politics in his 50 years on earth. We could see what would happen if somebody forced his way into parliament, never having bothered to stand for election, and had his baptism of fire not as a member of the House but as no less than leader of the Opposition.

We know from common sense and exposure to human nature that skilled, experienced and intelligent people in an organisation refuse – entirely justifiably – to be led and told what to do by somebody who has absolutely no experience in the field. Imagine if the board of directors of a newspaper publishing house, for instance, had to employ as an editor – in a moment of utter insanity designed to undermine the newspaper itself – a trained chef whose only exposure to media in general and newspapers in particular was occasionally reading one found lying on a table in a coffee-shop or in the lobby of the hotel where he worked.

What would be the natural consequence of this, other than generalised suggestions that they should all have their heads examined because chefs are not able to edit newspapers and the directors must be deliberately trying to destroy their own publication? The natural consequence would be that newspaper staff, particularly at the most senior levels where they have to take direction straight from the editor, will be unable to do so. This is not only because of basic human psychology which tells you that it is humiliating for highly skilled and experienced people to take orders and direction from somebody with no skills or experience in the field at all, but also at a professional management level. How could journalists working for that newspaper possibly trust the judgement or have confidence in the decisions of the chef running it?

This is the situation we are looking at now with the Nationalist Party. Delia’s hangers-on and fanatics are trying to make it seem as though the members of parliament and politicians at non-elected levels in the Nationalist Party are resisting him because they hadn’t supported him at the outset and he was not their first choice. In other words, that they are sulking and being difficult. The logic in this reasoning is completely flawed. They didn’t support him at the outset for the same reason they are resisting him now – and this even before news about his baggage was widely reported: he knows nothing about politics, has never been a politician, and they work in politics. How can they have confidence in his political judgement, or take orders from somebody who knows zilch about politics? They can’t. It’s as simple – and as complicated – as that.

This, too, is the reason why, beyond the immediate cluster of Delia groupies who are treating his election as the start of a cult, and speaking on Facebook like the inhabitants of Jonestown in the 1970s, there is no absolutely no enthusiasm for the new party leader. His debut onstage on the eve of Independence Day was a damp squib, with a strange, homogenous small crowd and everyone else staying away in a mixture of bewilderment and disgust. Here, too, human psychology plays a major role. Nobody with any self-respect is going to make the trip to Floriana and stand there to listen to, shout and clap for, somebody they had never heard of until eight weeks ago, and who is just another lawyer, but this time with baggage. It’s too embarrassing.

When party leaders have already been politicians for years, even if not in a major role, we don’t feel so idiotic supporting them or voting for them. There’s a good reason why no politician has ever walked in off the street and been elected party leader before, in either political party, and we’re seeing that good reason illustrated before us now. To those who argue back against this by saying “Give him a chance”, the response is simple: would you ask somebody in off the street and give them a chance to plumb your house or run your business, on the off-chance that they might get it right with no training or track record? Well, exactly – and how much more serious, then, is running a major political party and leading the Opposition. In the cold light of dawn, this decision is looking even more horrific than it was last week.