In a recent speech addressing a crowd of followers, newly installed Prime Minister Robert Abela had a fine time, enthusing with the audience about how their quality of life has so greatly improved under a Labour government and how it has fulfilled all they could ever wish for.

He highlighted how, today, people can eat out in a restaurant at least once a week and travel abroad on holiday once or twice a year. They can enjoy weekend breaks and entertain with their family.

Fine. Ok. All well and good. According to the man who leads the country, this is the way to measure the success of a nation. It is, for him, the ambition of society, the confirmation of progress that has been created.

Firstly, this flies completely in the face of a growing segment of society who struggle to feed their family at all. At a food shelter, volunteers can tell you that some pensioners come to fill a bottle of water to take with them, after having been provided with a meal by the organisation. This probably means that they do not have access to running water or drinkable water. 

It also ignores the plight of many who are homeless or barely manage to keep warm in winter and who live in a state of poverty without the security of knowing that they will keep a roof over their head.

If all this is just a blip, or not worth noting at all to the PM, then it is clear that the future for Malta will be harder for some and mediocre for the masses.

With some perspective and humility, some culture and sense of gratitude, the PM, again, should bear in mind that the privilege and the special opportunity that was enjoyed by his family is not at all common, except perhaps amongst those in the inner circle of Joseph Muscat. True, that circle seems to be added to by the day, as a compromised PeP joins suspect friend and may have led him to believe that it was the normal way of progress under Labour. Perhaps he should be enlightened that what was considered standard practice and wealth generation under Muscat and Schembri is based in many instances on impunity and the absence of rule of law. Certainly, it does not apply to the country as a whole, no matter how many ordinary households have a rental apartment generating spare income for them.

Robert Abela should be asking himself how the Maltese people started to move up the socio-economic ladder. He will see that the basis of that was the huge shift in education that was made under the Nationalist government. Under the regime of Dom Mintoff, higher education was practically ruined. All the student-worker schemes, sponsorships needed and Arabic plus the points system to get a place in what was left of the University, sent education to the doldrums of Siberia. 

Only when the expansion of good primary, secondary and higher education started for real, with the added benefit of student grants and new schools being built, did the social, economic and cultural change in Malta begin to take place. 

The true raising of families to a middle class came from their improved careers and jobs, as a result of better education and training. The MCAST was another factor in the training of students for good jobs in the various new fields that were opening up with foreign investment in Malta.

With Malta becoming a member of the European Union, young professionals could train and continue their study abroad and even work in Europe, expanding their mind and experience.

All of this had a profound effect in changing the attitude, ambition and reality of the new generation who in turn were able to lend a hand to older generations and ensure a better standard of living for them. There was a movement towards unity amongst classes, where political beliefs became secondary and not the dividing factor they had been in the past. 

Labour saw that their division and socialist ideas would not interest any of the new generation and the middle-class voters. A new image and a unifying message was needed to attract the votes. Following their significant victory, they assumed that people who knew them would never complain about the imbalance of fortune, as long as there was a week-end break, a trip to watch Inter or Manchester United and a pizza on Saturday night in it for them.

And there we now stand. A newly installed PM using his first town visit to tell people that they are now all well off and it is all thanks to Labour.

He forgets, I think, how hard some families have worked and the sacrifices they have made to provide an education to their children, paying for them to do their Masters or PhD abroad. The long nights spent awake studying. Others, who have to work long hours to get some cash for entertainment expenses, to be in a relationship or to imagine they could afford to get married, have a place to live and start a family.

The prospect, for many, of affording such a life, is so remote that in the end they chose to live for today, spend their spare cash on entertainment and put off any thought of settling down.  After all, with so much available today, parties, action films, sports and fitness, drugs of all sorts, even hard work is going out of fashion. Best to find some other way of generating an income.  Like having a friend with a Rolls Royce or a field on an ODZ. 

The Education Ministry is now under Dr. Owen Bonnici. The same Bonnici whose mission it was to cleanse the memorial of the Great Siege for an assassinated journalist.  He kept to the side of Joseph Muscat throughout his time as Prime Minister and ensured the future of the judiciary was secure for Labour governments. 

Those who take the value of education for granted will be condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past. There can be no real progress without education on equal terms for both genders. The last time we saw what women who have a brain can do, they were regaled with calls of “prostitute” by Tony Zarb, as they led a protest outside Castille.

Because that is how it is with Labour. They are misogynist and dull. Going out to work to a part-time job in a super-market or with a cleaning company, can give you some extra money in your pocket for treating your children to a McDonald every so often but it does little to encourage their self-esteem and to see that their children will grow up appreciating the value of a good education. Especially so, when income from rentals has removed the need to pursue a better education.

But that is really where Labour want the people to be at. They never wanted a population that can have some intellect and culture. Anyone who dared to criticize was bullied and insulted and their life threatened. That is also why independent journalists are not trusted and whenever possible the media is silenced.

Only recently we had the example of Alex Alden, a singer, who was harassed by the V18 director. The rest of the Labour party delegates kept quiet. Nobody went against Jason Micallef’s attacks. Dr Abela never showed up for an interview with the press during the campaign.

It could be that fish night will take the place of pasta night and there will be a nice reconditioned car for you to drive to Paceville. You can even get a tattoo. But failure to ensure investment in education for all and its role in prosperity, will cost society much more than they realize.