The Malta Labour Party felt that Joseph Muscat’s first 100 days as Leader of the Opposition merited a TV special.

After those flurries of interviews, which had greeted Muscat’s election, the press has left the man left alone for a while, which is a good thing. There’s nothing worse for anybody in the public eye than over-exposure. The trouble with giving too many interviews is that everyone is always asking the same questions, which means the interviewee ends up repeating himself and people get bored. And it’s not a very good sign if you’re boring people before you’re even elected.

On the whole, I think Muscat gave clear answers to all the questions without resorting to too much political doublespeak (although he really needs to stop talking about stagun politiku gdid and generazzjoni rebbiegha – all right we get it. Either ditch these catchphrases altogether or find a couple of new ones.)

However, as one of the journalists invited to pose a few questions to Muscat, my heart sank when I saw the set up. There were four of us from the press, surrounded by an audience, all of whom were there to ask questions too. Apart from the fact that this format gives the press very limited time, I always think it’s detrimental to a debate when the “ordinary people” in the studio are Labour (or Nationalist) supporters who have been obviously planted to ask questions to put their leader in a good light.

What is the point of this exactly? I’ve seen it happen over and over again each time I have been asked on TV, whether to put questions to Lawrence Gonzi, or to debate the MLP leadership election.

The kissing up and adulation of the politician starts from the very minute the person grabs the microphone: “Oh glorious Prime Minister, your slogan Flimkien Kollox Possibli really embodies everything I love about the Nationalist Party, which is why I now vote PN even though I come from a Labour background. I sing Dan hu l-mument every morning in my shower and the photo we took together when you came to my daughter’s wedding hangs in my sitting room right next to her wedding photo. (deep breath) Can you tell us what you are going to do about the income tax rates please?”

Then the politician smiles bashfully as if he never in a million years expected such fulsome praise, and launches into his spiel.

The same thing happened on the Joseph Muscat show, and it occurred to me that this was probably one of the reasons the number of people who have given up on both political parties has increased.

I wonder whether TV producers do this because they have a problem finding people who have no ties to a particular party who are willing to show their face on TV, or whether it’s because it’s better to play “safe” and be able to control the situation lest someone very hostile to Gonzi or Muscat barges in and ruins the show? But really, what is the worst that could happen? Are they afraid someone will suddenly start swinging a Samurai sword, shrieking like a deranged Ninja and barge towards the stage?

Or (gasp!) what if someone stands up in the middle of the programme and does something really radical like throw tomatoes at the speaker? I seem to recall this once happened (although not on TV) to the founders of that obscure and very short-lived little party Partit Demokratiku Malti in the 1980s when they held a little corner meeting and were pelted with ripe tomatoes. Ah, the good old days.

Whatever the reason that producers of these political shows have for using an artificial audience, I will let them in on a little secret: these supposed “ordinary people” don’t fool anyone. They look too very self-conscious anyway and many of them end up tripping and stumbling over their carefully rehearsed questions.

If they cannot find real unbiased people who want to quiz politicians, they should scrap the idea altogether. In fact, if I were the PR person for a politician and wanted to really drive my point home about how good my “product” is, I would take it to the extreme.

I would invite the politician’s arch-enemies, those who really loathe and despise the PN or MLP leader (whatever the case may be) with every fibre of their being. I know it’s hard to believe, but people who take politics that seriously really do exist... they even walk among us.

I can just picture it now, hatred and bile spewing from every pore while the poor politician squirms uneasily trying to retain his composure against the onslaught of all that fury.

You see the whole point (I presume) of such programmes is to show that the politician can take it on the chin, so to speak. So, throw him to the wolves, I say. Then it will be sink or swim. If he falters and falls apart, then forget it, he’s in the wrong business. But if he can come out of a it a little battered but definitely with his head held high, then he is definitely Prime Minister material.

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