We learn from the latest Eurobarometer survey that 51 per cent of the population “trusts the government”. When I read things like this, my initial reaction is: trusts the government to do what? Of course, what the pollsters mean to gauge is the level of public trust in the government. But the meaning of “trust” in English, in this context, is ambiguous in a way that it is not in Maltese. To “trust the government” does not mean the same thing as “to have trust (faith) in the government”.

A question about the first would translate into Maltese as “tafdah il-gvern?”, while a question about the second would read “ghandek fidjucja fil-gvern?”. What is required here, of course, is the answer to the second question, which is not particularly interesting. All it tells us is that those who, two years ago, voted for a Nationalist government – or more accurately, perhaps, against a government led by Alfred Sant – are once more back to the same way of thinking, after a downturn in the level of public trust in the government over the past 18 months or so.

I would be far more interested in the result of a survey about the level of public trust in the opposition, because I quite suspect that when this takes a nosedive, the level of trust in the government rises. Somehow, I sense that the Opposition Leader and the party he leads are coming across as having lost their sense of direction entirely. Public trust in the government may have risen because the government looks competent and sturdy when compared to the opposition. Those who flounder when in opposition will only drown when in government – but then we do not need to predict this, because we have past experience to go by.

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The government should not give itself a little congratulatory slap on the back at this news – though perhaps the Prime Minister should do so, since he appears to have won over those who, immediately after his anointment, thought that he would not make it. He has proved us wrong.

Yet, the fact remains that people are very annoyed about the problems that never find solutions, and which have plagued our lives for decades now. The roads are beyond hope, those who cannot afford to pay private school fees fight to get their children into Church schools because state education is worryingly poor, people are taxed heavily but in return get little other than an unwieldy state sector pay-roll, true work opportunities (as opposed to low-paying jobs) still exist only outside Malta, everything is becoming more difficult for almost everyone, while the rest tread water instead of growing.

Of course, we still smile and laugh and tell pollsters that we are the

happiest people in the world – but the real truth is that discontent lurks in the shadows. The significant factor today, though, is that the discontented are without a solution. They cannot vote to change the government without ending up worse off – and they know it.

This only makes for greater frustration and anger at all the things that never get put right. Only 13 per cent of those polled said that they expect the general situation to improve in the coming year, and no more than a meagre eight per cent think that they will be better off financially. There is very little indication of optimism and confidence, and of course, this is compounded by the fact that there is no possible alternative government on the horizon.

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We could always emigrate to Canberra, I suppose. A Maltese man who did just that and who now lives as far away from Malta as it is possible to get without living in the South Pole, took the trouble to take me to task for writing about the downside of life here, instead of “talking up the benefits”. He wrote that instead of complaining about the roads and grumbling because I have to spend so much on repairs caused by damage to my car wheels, I should take the “simple solution of buying a four-wheel drive designed to take the sort of punishment that Maltese roads offer”.

Raphael Dingli of Australia expects us to put up and shut up. He did not though – he went away, and now drives over the smooth roads of Canberra, where the citizens, instead of spending their hard-earned cash on gas-guzzling four-wheel drives and keeping quiet, demand of their government roads in return for their taxes – and get them. All that way away in Australia, Mr Dingli has trust in the Maltese government. It is a heartening thought.

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Another Maltese who left Malta for good, this time writing from New York (if I lived in New York, I would find better things to do and more interesting things to think about), conveyed his annoyance at the fact that “money-laundering” is translated as “hasil ta’ flus”, which suggests that the money is being washed. He thinks that this is wrong because it suggests that the money is being washed, literally rather than figuratively.

Why, though? Laundering and hasil mean pretty much the same thing, except that laundering is generally used only in reference to textiles. Nobody who hears of “money-laundering” thinks that the money is being put through the wool cycle on the washing-machine – not unless they know very little English, in which case they would not even know what “laundering” means. This New Yorker thinks that we should use the English term instead, as a loan word. How would he suggest it should be spelt? As “manilonderink”, perhaps? Give me hasil tal-flus any day.

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So Arnold Cassola has decided to try his luck in the field of Italian politics. Well, what can I say? It comes across very badly, and no amount of “talking it up” by his peers at Alternattiva Demokratika is going to make it look like anything other than opportunism. The conclusion reached is that now that his term of office with the European Greens is drawing to a close, perhaps he does not want to return to the beloved patria – always on the understanding that the patria in question is Malta and not Italy, obviously.