Two of the front page stories in The Malta Independent on Sunday last Sunday dealt with political matters.

One of them was about the creation of a centralised system at Mater Dei Hospital which is aimed at cutting down on waiting lists for surgery. It quoted parliamentary secretary Joe Cassar saying that an exercise in a section of the orthopaedics department had led to a 25 per cent cut in the number of people on the waiting list.

The other story dealt with the absence of at least eight government MPs from the Nationalist Party Independence Day mass meeting. The issue was not the number of MPs who were missing, but who those MPs were. Four of them in fact have been recently embroiled in issues that have caused some harm to the party, and this is why their absence was conspicuous.

There’s a funny side to the two stories, but it’s not about their content. It’s the way that they were tackled in the newspaper analysis on the political parties’ respective radio stations that same Sunday morning.

Censu Galea, David Agius and Pierre Portelli took part in the Radio 101 programme, while Charles Mangion, Helena Dalli and Alfred Grixti took part in the One radio programme.

On Radio 101, the story about the mass meeting was described as a “non-story”, while great importance was given to the other story about the hospital. Conversely, on One radio the hospital story was described as “tal-biki” (piteous) whereas the absence of so many MPs from the mass meeting was considered as “proof” that the PN is in great difficulty.

It is a real pity that politicians think that people are so stupid. Or else it was simply a matter of preaching to the converted, as they think that only diehard supporters listen to the political stations.

These diehard supporters can be fed anything without question. They will sleep upside down if the party tells them to do so. But what politicians fail to realise is that there are many others who do not take things lying down, and who can see through the smoke that politicians try to throw at them.

It is not a “non-story” that a number of Nationalist MPs missed the meeting, considered to be the culmination of the celebrations marking the PN’s greatest achievement for the country. The fact that the absentees – excluding those with a valid excuse – were MPs who have in more ways than one been at odds with the party or the government makes it of great relevance.

It is not “tal-biki” that finally something concrete is being done to cut down on the waiting lists for surgery at the hospital. If anything, parliamentary secretary Joe Cassar should be commended for the initiative taken to have a centralised system that will go a long way to cut down waiting time.

Yet, for political reasons, both sides try to praise or denigrate depending on the subject of the stories. Still, it is a shame that people, in this case the radio listeners, are treated this way.

All Nationalists, even the diehards, know that the PN is in great difficulty at the moment and that its popularity is low. Denying it means that you want to hide it.

All Labourites know that the service provided at Mater Dei is excellent and that urgent medical problems are being treated with urgency. Denying it means you want to take political advantage of the most precious thing that we have – our health.

It is a shame that politicians still think that they can say what they like because they believe that the people are stupid.

They are not.