The good thing about being in Opposition is that you’re not expected to do anything but carp. Of course, it’s to your credit if your carping is constructive, but even if it’s not, you can say pretty much what you please and nobody can say ‘Right then, if you’re so damned smart, go ahead and sort it out’ – at least not for another four years.

So the people in Opposition may think they’re in hell or limbo, but actually they’re in political heaven. Alfred Sant discovered this through direct experience, which is why his government lasted just 22 months. Faced with the reality of running the show, he just gave up. It turned out he was much more comfortable in Opposition, so comfortable that he couldn’t be moved on no matter how many elections he lost.

Right now, Joseph Muscat is on a roll, rushing about having a right old good time, shouting about the government not having a ‘sinsla’ – the word backbone doesn’t quite work in this context – and giving the prime minister instructions on what to do. If it weren’t quite so gloriously arrogant, it would be highly amusing. Here’s somebody whose entire experience of the world is as a student, a Super One reporter, a general dogsbody in a financial advisory outfit, and an incomplete stint as a member of the European Parliament, and he’s trying to tell us that he knows better than anyone else how to manage the country.

So I ask, why not simply pluck Glenn Bedingfield out of the ranks and give him the keys? If Joseph can do it, so can Glenn. They have pretty much the same training and experience, with the difference that Glenn also ran a restaurant.

I remarked to somebody the other day that the main reason lots of people feel more comfortable with the Nationalist Party than with Labour is that no matter how angry you might be at any particular move or the general behaviour of the Nationalists in government, you continue to retain the sensation that they know what they’re doing, even if there are times at which they don’t do it particularly well, and that they have a well-thought-out and serious plan.

With the Labour Party, on the other hand, one is left with the tangible sensation that things are being done on the hoof, that corners are being cut, that nothing is thought through, that the vision is truncated, and that clowns, fools and worse, quite stupid people, are at work in the background (to say nothing of front of house). There is something deeply disquieting about this short-termist approach to politics of seeing no further than the doorway to the Auberge de Castille. Unfortunately, and disappointingly for those who expected better, Joseph Muscat is doing exactly what Sant did: aiming for the premiership and power without having a plan or a goal beyond that.

This frees him up to behave in all manner of absurd ways, like going to Sicily to eat hamburgers with Anglu Farrugia – poor judgement in food and choice of travelling companion, as well as in other matters – instead of attending the formal farewell banquet hosted by the prime minister for the outgoing president. This is a minor point, his supporters say. But no, to the people he is trying so hard to win over, it is not minor at all, but revelatory. However democratic we might be in other ways, we don’t want the sort of prime minister who goes on hamburger-eating jaunts to Sicily with Anglu Farrugia instead of doing his duty and minding his manners. It says too much.

Another thing that offends people is his failure to stand side by side with the prime minister in the matter of Malta’s recent standoff with Italy. However divided we may be politically, socially and in all sorts of other ways, we do have the ability to pull together in the face of external affront. The natural reaction of any Maltese person – unless he or she is particularly twisted – to Italy’s shirking of its obligations and dumping them on Malta instead is one of anger against Italy, and not of anger against the Maltese government. It is Italy who is the aggressor, and so all of Malta should stand together against Italy and behind the Maltese government on this matter at least.

Yet Joseph Muscat is trying to turn this thing on its head, by seeking to direct towards our own government the anger we feel towards the Italian government. When he should be telling people to stand four square with Malta – their own country, for heaven’s sake – he is instead cavilling on every public platform available to him, creating division and trying to undermine the Maltese government which, in the entirely different context of international politics, means trying to undermine Malta.

What really gets me about all this is Muscat’s supreme inability to grow into his role. I see no difference between his current behaviour, attitude and use of language and his behaviour, attitude and use of language when he was a Super One reporter. I watch and listen to him speak in public forums and all I can see and hear is Joseph tas-Super One. The mentality and approach are the same. He’s a little older, his hair has gone and he can afford better clothes, but that’s about it. It’s a big let-down for those who expected better.

So what would those who expected better have expected in the Malta-Italy stand-off? Muscat should have stood with the prime minister and presented Italy with a unified front: national unity in the face of international affront. Had he behaved like this, he would have come across as psychologically mature, politically sophisticated and able to put partisan electioneering aside in favour of the national interest. In other words, he would have come across as a grown-up, a leader and a creditable politician.

Instead, he is coming across as a Super One reporter promoted far beyond his abilities and playing a part about which he hasn’t a clue.

Given that Italy was prepared to let those imperilled people drown and to blame it on Malta, should Malta have done the same – let them drown and blame it on Italy, wiping our hands of their blood because we were legally in the right? That is what Joseph Muscat appears to be saying, and it is not surprising because it fits right in with the mentality of those whose support he is whipping up: ‘Heqq, mhux tort tieghi, ta.’ It is a sub-culture that doesn’t know the meaning of the words ‘taking responsibility for one’s actions.’ It’s really sad to see these indications that the Labour leader is not much better.

A reporter from The Times asked him point blank, on a video that was uploaded on the newspaper’s internet site, what he would have done were he prime minister. Would he have left those 66 people to drown? Muscat delivered one of the fantastically inappropriate reactions for which he is making a name for himself: he laughed merrily. “No, I wouldn’t have let them drown but...”

But what, exactly? Would he have had Malta’s patrol boats pick them up and try to dump them on Lampedusa, facing down the Italian navy? I hardly think so. So he would have let them drown. There was no midway solution in the face of Italy’s intransigence. I am glad to see that the prime minister has now described the Italians’ conduct as “disgusting”, because that is precisely what it was.

“We will carry on doing what is ethically, morally and legally correct,” the prime minister said on May Day, the implication being that neither Italy nor Joseph Muscat are doing that. He’s right in taking this approach. People are angry and worried about illegal immigration, but in the long term, what concerns us far more is that the country is not led by somebody with the cowboy approach to national and international politics.

Daphne Caruana Galizia’s blog is at www.daphnecaruanagalizia.com