No matter how hard Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi tried to put on his best smile, the main revelation of the budget presented last Wednesday was that he has his back to the wall, burdened with fiscal constraints, with little if any room for manoeuvre and hardly any elbow room at all.

On budget eve, Dr Gonzi announced in an interview with this newspaper that this was not meant to be a pre-election budget.

Indeed it was so bereft of “goodies” that it can hardly qualify as one, but this does not necessarily mean that this could not be government’s last budget in office.

The over-riding issue will remain the euro admission date.

If the government gets a positive reply from the EU, I still think that it will go for an early election to try and ride the storm before inflation starts biting.

If, on the other hand, euro entry is delayed by, say, one year, then I cannot exclude that the government might go the whole hog by remaining in office, virtually till the very end.

Although Labour had been accused of raising expectations deliberately, in actual fact it was the Nationalist media that spoke in triumphalistic terms in the days leading up to the budget speech.

I can cite instances when the PM even boasted – during his party’s general council – of the “miracles” that had been achieved under his administration.

What he should have done, had he really intended to take a straightforward no-nonsense approach, was remind his audience of the way the Maastricht criteria had made a prisoner of him. But, alas, he was far too interested in sounding upbeat in order to score cheap political points.

Under these circumstances one cannot be blamed for claiming that government has presented us with a budget that not only did not contain any surprises but that also fell far short of expectations.

The way the surcharge issue was handled showed that the majority of the electorate will continue to carry the burden that is burning up most consumers’ spending power.

For this reason I simply cannot agree with those constituted bodies who have argued that the budget will boost the taxpayer’s purchasing power.

There were, admittedly, some cosmetic changes geared at reining in the haemorrhage of hard core middle-class voters.

But one thing is certain. From the way Harry Vassallo reacted on PBS – in sharp contrast to the far more level-headed approach adopted by AD economic spokesman Edward Fenech – Alternatt-iva Demokratika has literally written itself off the map by making itself politically redundant.

I see nothing in the budget that will serve as a stimulus to economic growth.

Neither can I see it enhancing our national competitiveness.

The fact that expenditure on R & D is being boosted by a mere quarter of a million liri confirms that, in spite of a well-prepared strategy document, the government continues to pay mere lip service to research, development and innovation.

I was not expecting anything different from the chorus line of constituted bodies, who hardly ever have any words of criticism for Nation-alist government budgets.

But in the final analysis, what matters most is how Joe Citizen perceives the effect of the budget.

No one can blame voters for feeling deflated in spite of the fact that government has decided to increase its hand-outs from Lm8m to Lm13m.

There is no doubt that Dr Gonzi is aware that the most disgruntled segment of society is the middle class.

One might find a few measures aimed at appeasing them, but I feel that with a budget so badly lacking in substance it will neither kick-start the economy nor create the feel-good factor that is much needed to alleviate the burdens that they have been carrying for these last few years.

Appeasing the part-time employed is small consolation for those seeking stimuli for full-time job creation, which are conspicuous by their absence.

Where government has scored is in the slick presentation of the budget and in the smart delivery of the Prime Minister himself.

What makes me feel that Dr Gonzi is in an election mode, even though he did not present a pre-electoral budget, is the lack of long-term vision in his budget speech as well as in the short-termism of some of the measures that he left for the crescendo of his speech, ie securitisation re expropriated land, speedier tax refunds etc.

What is even more worrying is that there is nothing in the budget that will reduce the spiralling inflation that is bogging us down, particularly when inflation is in decline in many eurozone member states.

It is a shame that the government failed to set out a specific time-scale for the introduction of accrual accounting when John Dalli had previously set up a road map for this issue many years ago.

Until this anomaly is rectified, nobody can blame (opposition leader) Alfred Sant for continuing to take certain figures with a pinch of salt, particularly when government spin doctors have recently been put at the helm of certain sensitive government institutions that are meant to report to Brussels.

I am quite sure that although government’s erosion of votes might stall a bit between now and Christmas, by the time the New Year digs in, the Nationalists will be back in the doldrums.

The Malta Independent editorial claimed last Wednesday that the country finally has a business plan not a shopping list.

That might be the case, but it surely does not have a strategic economic plan as it had once promised to deliver!

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Leo Brincat is the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and IT.