Two consecutive surveys have indicated that the Labour Party would win by more than 70,000 votes were an election to be held today. Furthermore, Joseph Muscat’s personal trust rating has increased while Delia’s has gone down. There is no reason to doubt these usually reliable exercises.

The fact that the government now has a stronger backing from the electorate is somewhat surprising seeing that these surveys were conducted after the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and the protests that followed. The PL has weathered the storm and, despite the state of the rule of law and the institutions, has emerged even stronger.

The second piece of news is perhaps less surprising, seeing that many in the Nationalist Party camp are still unwilling to endorse Adrian Delia and that the Opposition has a serious lack of credibility at this point in time.

Surprising or not, the numbers are there, and the picture they paint is a hazy one.

One of the conclusions that can be drawn from them is that politicians, and us media people, sometimes see things from a different perspective than many people out there. Issues that in our eyes dominate the political landscape might not be so interesting and relevant to people in general.

Maybe we are not managing to connect with our audiences. Maybe the audience just doesn’t want to listen anymore. After all, many people disregarded all the revelations of corruption and kickbacks before the last general election, and voted for the Labour Party to remain in government. We presented people with facts, but people preferred to stay the course.

Political parties may, upon realizing that their audience has become unreceptive, change tack and shift to a completely different subject – one that captures their followers’ attention again.

But the media cannot do the same. Our job is to keep the authorities in check, and to expose and report on cases of corruption and maladministration. We cannot stop doing that just because people are not listening. We cannot shift to stories about the weather, and ignore corruption and bad governance.

But yes, it is disheartening to see that many people out there seem not to have a care in the world about some very serious issues.

Faced with these survey results, there are many questions that need to be asked, even if many of them will probably remain unanswered: “Are we a morally corrupt people? Are we willing to allow corruption at the highest levels because we have money in our pockets? Do we lack conscience? Why are out youths so apathetic? Why are they not leading the fight for a stronger democracy?”

The real shame here is that these results are being used by the government as an excuse to dismiss all the accusations that come its way.

This week the European Parliament called on the Police Commissioner to investigate the Panama Papers scandal, which broke more than a year ago. Yet this is hardly troubling to the government, which is comforted by the backing of a strong majority.

The Prime Minister was asked about the EP vote yesterday. He was interviewed on the Labour Party’s own radio station and, of course the question was spun to include the ‘negative role’ the PN had played in Strasbourg.

Instead of taking note of the strong call for action to be taken in Malta to strengthen the rule of law, the PM cited the survey and said that “what counts is how the silent majority feels.”  In other words: ‘we will not change anything because we would win an election hands down.’

Unfortunately, this failure to acknowledge the concerns of the (rather large) minority, coupled with the authorities’ failure to enforce the rule of law properly is breeding an attitude of divisiveness and impunity, with some people now feeling safe to issue death threats publicly in the social media, and others defending their actions and equating them with freedom of speech.