That Alfred Sant and the Malta Labour Party persistently refuse to commit themselves to specific policies is a fact. It is not the PN’s harping on it that has made it so. It exists independently of whatever the PN’s propaganda machinery regularly spews out. Quite simply, it is a fact that the MLP does not want to say what they will do if they become the next government. Remaining mum on practically every policy area is the MLP’s most consistent policy.

First, a small clarification. The meaning of a policy is clear, specific and inconvertible. A policy is a concrete choice that a political party makes to address a problem or face a challenge. In its essence, a policy is a plan of action, spelled out in black and white. Having a “vision”, an “ideology”, a set of “principles” or whatever you want to call it is the basis on which any party policy worth its salt should be based on. But a policy is not and can never be equal to them. To say, for instance, that you are for equality between the sexes is not a policy. Introducing or not introducing quotas at management level of the civil service is. Saying that Malta has to have close relations with the European Union is not a policy. Being in favour or against EU membership is. That job creation in tomorrow’s Malta depends in large measure on the acquisition of new skills is not a policy. Implementing concrete measures to take IT technology and culture to them is. And so on.

Now most politicians, even the best ones, cannot resist the temptation to excite themselves and their audiences by speaking on the “vision thing” and expect everyone to believe that they were speaking about policies. It is indeed the media’s job, to drain the political verbiage through a sieve and see whether any policies are left in it.

There is another, even more irritating type of politicalspeak which is not even ideology, vision, principle or whatever, let alone policy. It is what I like to call the painful belabouring of the obvious. And it is so rife in local politics and media that most people have come to treat it as normal. On a daily basis, Maltese politicians – Nationalist and Labour alike – unload truckloads of statements which do not need to be said because no one in their right mind would disagree with them. How often have you come across statements like “we need to be more competitive”, “we must attract more tourists”, “we need to improve Malta’s standard of living”, “we must have a socially just distribution of wealth” and so on? None of these statements are worthy of being called political because they are not contentious. Everyone agrees with them, regardless of political stripes.

Now to the argument, that is the political significance of the Labour Party’s allergy to policies. Alfred Sant’s party has not taken a vow of political silence. Quite the contrary, they have something to say on practically everything under the sun. But what they say almost invariably amounts to one thing and one thing only: a concoction of unqualified and trenchant criticism of government plus a generous dollop of ideological platitudes. They do not say what they propose instead, or why their alternative solutions would work better than those of the government. In other words, Labour’s fault is that they do not submit ideas to the public which are persuasive in themselves, ideas that on their own merit are better than those of government.

Now I know that there is a school of thought in the Labour Party whose counsel goes something like this. Labour ought to do one thing: nothing. The party ought to just sit tight, be a spectator as the PN struggles for air in an inevitable electoral swamp of its own making. According to this “wisdom”, the cost-cutting and restructuring decisions being taken by the PN have to be taken whoever is in government. They have to be taken because we are in Europe and they are necessary for Malta to reap the benefits of being European. But the MLP is in the lucky position of being in opposition while these measures are being taken by the party it wants to unseat. Publicly they can appear as if they are criticising the measures when in private they thank their lucky stars that it is the PN which has to take them. Bingo!

What is equally telling is that Labour rarely, if ever, defends its 1996–98 record, the brief period they had power to do things. So intent are they to appear as a completely free standing political unit, devoid of historical, ideological and any other sort of historical baggage that they are willing to quietly disown their own, very recent, past. Worse, since they are the same people, they are willing to disown themselves.

So where does all this lead? They say that a week is a long time in politics. But for all I know, Labour’s gambit might well pay off. For all intents and purposes, the argument goes, the PN has been in government since 1987 and all the MLP has to do is wait for election day with one purpose in mind: to make an enemy of the government and no one else. All that Labour needs is for everyone to think one thought: that they will provide a solution to all their problems. Labour’s political philosophy is straight out of Lion King: Hakuna Matata. It’s a problem free philosophy. Again, for all I know, it might be the clinching electoral argument

Yet politics, if it is to remain a noble profession, is more than just being in power. It is about having power to do something. And that means one thing and one thing only: policies, policies and more policies. To remove policies out of politics is to turn it into a game.

In effect, what Labour is saying is this. And this is the central point. They should be voted into power not for what they propose but for who they are. Alfred Sant should become Prime Minister again because he is not Lawrence Gonzi. What is wrong with this Cabinet, says Labour without saying it, is that it is not made up of Labour Ministers. What is wrong with this government is that it is Nationalist rather than Labour. Hakuna Matata.

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