Ever since I started taking a keen interest in politics, well before I decided to throw my cap into the ring, I could not but notice that certain sectors of Maltese society, including some eminent contributors in the media, tend to judge performance by politicians depending on which party is in government.

The going gets really tough whenever a Labour Government is perceived to be in political difficulty owing to some political gaffe or to some misdemeanour by one of its Ministers.

There is on the other hand silence whenever similar gaffes or mistakes are committed by the Nationalist Government or any of its members. History is rife with examples.

I remember distinctly the day when the former Labour Minister of Finance, Lino Spiteri, had revealed that the country was living beyond its means and that we were running a permanent and structural deficit.

Public finances were in dire straits and Labour had coined the problem as the "hofra" (hole).

True to form the Nationalist opposition, then, denied the undeniable and reacted to the revelation by inventing the infamous "hrafa" (tale) because, they contented, there was no such thing as a deficit and that it was all in the imagination of Alfred Sant.

This posed a political problem for Labour as the stance taken by the Nationalist party cast into doubt what Labour was trying to convey to the public - discipline, restructure, change…or perish.

Some pseudo-independent political observers, with well-known traditional links to the nationalist party, dashed onto the same bandwagon of the nationalists and attacked Labour for daring to address public finances.

This gave credence to the nationalist opposition's memorable denial of the truth. The rest is history.

Within days of taking office again, after a mere 22-month long spell in opposition - during which time it was clearly unrepentant for past mistakes and allergic to internal change - the nationalist party made an incredible volte-face.

The "hrafa" evaporated in thin air and frontline Nationalist ministers started harping on the need to make sacrifices and "to help them carry the cross." Former Finance Minister John Dalli cried out at the granaries that we must all start biting the bullet ("nibdew naqtghu bi sninna").

The same chorus of opinion formers and self-annointed experts danced to the music and, as if they had never taken a contrary stand weeks before while Labour was still at the helm, started to preach about the need to rein in the deficit, to curb public expenditure and to control abuse of the welfare system.

To add insult to injury, they also warned Labour to avoid political controversy on the need for the country to restructure, a necessity which a couple of weeks before was, to them, inexistent but which they suddenly metamorphosed into an issue which deserved consensus the moment the nationalists returned to power.

The list is long. Needless to mention are the utilities bills and the students' stipends People had said, under the last labour administration, that these were issues that should never have been addressed. But with the Nationalists at the helm it would be a sin not to do so. There are, you see, excusable austerity measures - provided that they are championed by the nationalists!

Indeed after the 1998 general election the nationalists had already reneged on their electoral promise to restore the utilities bills to their former glory by introducing only a small cosmetic reduction.

And since 2003 they have charged a 55 per cent tax on the bill, under the guise of a surcharge, which in reality partly offsets the increase in international prices and which truly, truly serves as a top-up to make good for the deficit.

The surcharge is too high and does not tally at all with rises in oil prices. Why the Government refuses to allow an independent audit of its own assessment of the surcharge should come to you as no surprise - the cat would be out of the bag and the Government would no longer be able to hide behind the excuse of international oil prices.

And noboby seems to want to grill the Government on its decision not to re-introduce hedging oil prices that would have saved families, business and industry hundreds of liri each year.

But when Labour introduced it, all hell broke loose because oil prices were then plummeting. No matter how prices had then continued to fall Labour was purchasing oil at sustainable and stable prices, a truly wise decision.

Today we have to pay through our noses for Government's blatant failures and conceit. Our utility bills are astronomically high because of Government's failure to reintroduce hedging as a strategic measure to counter spiralling international prices and not as a direct consequence of international prices per se.

Quite naturally, Labour will not get credit from independent political obsorvors where credit is due to it as most of them are plainly and clearly biased. But surely Labour is getting credit from the electorate… and that's what matters most!

Dr GavinGulia LL.D., M.P.

(Dr Gulia is Main Opposition Spokesman on Home Affairs and the Armed Forces)