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 perceived misdemeanour by one of its ministers. There is on the other hand a conspiracy of silence whenever similar gaffes, u-turns 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, 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 opportunistic 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 and attacked Labour for daring to address public finances. This gave credibility 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 u-turn. 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 snienna”).

You see, the Nationalists, unlike Labour, have a licence to make as many u-turns as they conveniently wish, and enjoy the privilege of not having their credibility checked by “independent” observers.

The same chorus of opinion formers and self-anointed 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 national consensus the moment the Nationalists returned to power.

The list is long. Needless to mention the utilities bills and the students’ stipends, which under the last Labour administration 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 introduced a tax on the utilities bills at the rate of 17 per cent under the guise of a surcharge, which eventually shot up to 67.5 per cent in 2005.

In reality the surcharge partly offsets the increase in international prices but truly, truly it serves as a top-up to make good for the deficit. The surcharge is too high and does not tally at all with rise in oil prices. Why the government refuses to allow an independent audit of its own assessment of the surcharge, as Labour is claiming, should come to you as no surprise - the government would no longer be able to hide behind the excuse of the international oil prices.

Another controversial issue is the great promise made by the Nationalist Party to the thousands of hunters and trappers before the last general elections. Their pastime, they were told, was guaranteed. You see, it was convenient for the PN to lie as thousands of votes were at stake. And had the Nationalists told the truth, and nothing but the truth, particularly about hunting and trapping in spring, most probably most hunters and trappers would have voted for the alternative foreign policy and today, most probably, there would not have been a Nationalist government led by Lawrence Gonzi.

The fact is that today the Nationalists are caught firmly with their backs to the wall defying, uselessly, the writing on the wall and shamelessly dragging Malta into thorny legal matters with the EU to try to save face with the hunters and trappers. The Nationalists have fooled too many for too long.

Strangely enough “independent” political observers don’t really hound the government over the promises it made to the hunters and trappers. They sound rather apologetic as if to say that it was necessary to lie as otherwise we would not have joined the EU!

So much for democratic scrutiny. It is inexistent in Malta.

Or rather you will only find it when Labour is in power.

Gavin Gulia is opposition spokesman on home affairs