This week we have started the most demanding period in political life – the general election campaign. Yes you might say, we have been waiting for quite some time now, and the Nationalists have missed a couple of advantageous periods when they could have possibly had a better result, but in the end even they could not postpone the date of reckoning any further.

As I have already said several times before, Labour has been preparing for this general election for more than three years. The idea of having wide discussions with all and sundry about our various documents was a unique idea indeed. It was an innovation in Maltese politics, which helped the party to understand better the general feeling of the public in general, and thus to focus most on those issues that matter most.

The exercise proved so successful that every organisation of good intent: from medical, social, religious, and across the whole social spectrum came forward to meet Labour and to participate in what the Nationalists never shared – a true and honest dialogue. It is said that “words are cheap”, but the sincere amassment of most of the shared ideas and wishes, have now been incorporated in Labour’s publication New Beginning. It is not the volume that measures the value of a work, but I can assure all and sundry, that those who have read the plan find sense in every sentence.

The success of our general conference was a further big plus for Labour’s politics. Nothing can remove our urge for solidarity, when we are there together, discussing, arguing, disagreeing and deciding. This year the general conference came with a nice thick icing – it was held during the same week when the European Socialists Bureau Meeting was convening in Malta, and this gave the event a more European and Socialist environment. What they had to say about Labour’s European credentials was then perhaps the sharpest wound that inflicted the Nationalists’ ego, when they said that the Maltese Labour members of the European Parliament contribute far more than one would expect from a delegation of its size, coming from the smallest member state in Europe.

But the cherry on the cake came when Alan Johnson, British Secretary for Health, explained that the purpose of any Labour Party is precisely to bring social justice and to eradicate poverty. Many a time we have heard the notion that there is no difference between the respective politics of the Nationalist and Labour parties. The intention of those who put forward this argumentation is clear: that to confuse.

Labour, however, is not only different, but better. As a party, it was born with the clear intention of giving everyone, especially those who society left behind, a meaningful living. To give them a voice and the power to change what is leaving them behind. A sincere hope that things can and will change. That things will change for the better.

That the Nationalists are desperately patching up their boat, hopefully keeping it afloat and not let it sink before the election, is evident. The recent surge of defections from within their ranks is a further clear indication that all is not well within their party, and that probably we should expect more in the near future.

Corruption is eating them away, and here I am not talking merely of petty corruption, but of institutionalised corruption that is groomed from within the institutions that are supposedly created to avoid such misdemeanors. But this alone will not give Labour the victory it deserves. It is the work of the many that will do this in making our politics clear and understood.

The solidarity between us is strong, in our sole purpose of putting Labour and its leadership where it belongs: in the forefront of a Labour government.

A government for one and all. A government that is not only different, but better.

A government of success – success for all.

[email protected]

Dr Michael Falzon is the MLP Deputy Leader for Party Affairs

and MLP candidate on the 2nd and 10th electoral

districts