In the United States of America there is a form of politics called “mushroom politics.” Its principle is “keep them in the dark and feed them manure”. It is not known if any US consultants have taught this version of politics to the Malta Labour Party, or whether its leader picked it up when he was in Harvard. It appears that a good dose of this kind of politics was used prior to the 1996 election, before the EU referendum and the 2003 election, and is now being used again.

Fortunately for Malta, a little more than half the electorate saw the light between 1996 and 1998, and now refuses to act or be fed like a mushroom. Similarly, the majority of the university students do not seem to be in the dark at present!

From the TV programme Xarabank of the other week we can conclude that the Labour manifesto is not worth the paper it is written on. The Labour leader informed us that when his party took office in 1996, they found such a deep hole in government finances, that they were justified in ignoring what they had promised earlier and to introduce a record number of taxes and fees.

As far as it is known, the national accounts are published yearly, and all those who say they are experts on national statistics know the time lapse between the publication of such accounts and the collection of data.

If it were true that the Labour Party was uninformed about the financial situation in 1996, on what basis did it make its promises? What guarantee do we have that the Labour Party is now informed about the current financial situation? Are we to assume that if, God forbid, the Labour Party were to be elected to power it could declare that it found a different situation than it expected, so are all its promises meaningless, including its gimmick on the surcharge?

Reception class

Let us take one of the pathetic gimmicks in the education sector, namely the introduction of the reception class. This is mentioned on pages 10 and 21 of Labour’s manifesto. In the introductory paragraph on “investment in the public sector,” the manifesto states that “the participation of the public sector needs to be sustained with investment plans, improvements and enhancements that will ascertain the trust of the public as well as the contribution of all those involved” (p. 9).

Where is the investment plan for the introduction of the “new year at the beginning of the primary, called reception class” (p. 10)? Where are the details of the financial implications? Why were “all those involved” including teachers and parents not even consulted prior to the publication of the manifesto? If the Labour Party garners a majority of votes in the election, will it consider such a vote as the appropriate “consultation”?

In the introductory sentence of the section on the policy in the education sector, the manifesto declares “education cannot be planned in fits and starts”! It needs “long and detailed planning, thought and devised in full and continuous consultation with all the parties involved in education at all levels” (p. 20).

Has this long and detailed planning started? What stage has it reached? Who was involved? Where is the outcome? When is this planning expected to end? In which year is the new reception class going to be introduced? If the Labour Party is so certain that what has worked well, if that is the case, in other countries might be adopted in Malta, why has it kept this proposal “in the dark” until now? Why did it not share it “with all the parties involved”?

Does the “reform process over a span of years” (p. 21.10) refer to the experience in foreign countries, or to the adoption of this new policy in Malta? Are we at the very preliminary stage of this proposal, where anything could happen, even the possibility of shelving such an idea? Or has the Labour Party already taken the decision to proceed and introduce this class? Are private schools expected to adopt this policy as well? Is this not a case of leaving everybody in the dark, or “mushroom politics”?

Separation of powers

In his response to the intervention of Dr Frank Portelli on the TV programme Xarabank, the caretaker Leader of the Opposition said he did not agree that the Prime Minister should send people who have alleged information on corruption to the Commissioner of Police.

We can now understand what is meant by zero tolerance on corruption. Are we to understand that the Leader of the Opposition is considering the possibility that the Labour Party in government assumes the role of the judiciary, in addition to that of the executive? Is it possible that the Labour leader does not recognise separation of powers?

Is this why, under previous Labour governments, corruption was institutionalised? Is this why hardly any cases, if at all, were investigated or given due process? It is very convenient for “the court of the people” to declare that there was no corruption, as a result of a policy of zero tolerance.

In the course of this election campaign, the main characteristic of the Labour Party and its leadership has been a state of denial. All the wrong decisions taken by the Labour leader were “water under the bridge.” Malta would have been completely flooded had Dom Mintoff not brought his party down, and had the present government and its predecessor not saved us from Labour’s disasters. Why are all the major Labour proposals shrouded in mystery and darkness? How long can the Labour leader think that he could feed us manure?

The Labour leader refuses to answer questions or evades the answer on controversial issues, and labels journalists as not being serious. If the Labour leader refuses to answer questions about his past political errors and proposals for the future when still in Opposition, what answers can we expect if he is elected to office? Malta cannot trust or afford to give a blank cheque to the Labour Party. Malta does not need a “Mushroom” Labour Party, particularly in government.