During the famous “visit the kitchens” speech, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi tried to convince the PN kunsillieri (who had just done Labour Party a huge favour by voting him back to the leadership of the party) that he had the magical solution to crawl the Nationalist Party out of the disastrous situation he allowed it to fall into

He said that he was going to appoint, with immediate effect, MEP Simon Busuttil as his special delegate so that Dr Busuttil could group people sector by sector, meet them and together with AZAD form a prospective manifesto which would “take us to the future”. He said it is important to listen to people and that is why he was going to appoint the one wise man for the job.

There is one point that the Prime Minister is missing however: Simon Busuttil – the heir apparent to the throne – is not the Prime Minister. People want and expect to talk to Lawrence Gonzi. It’s the Prime Minister’s surname which was used in the GonziPN slogan, not Busuttil’s. Dr Busuttil might be the nicest man on earth and might be the chosen one to lead the party as soon as Dr Gonzi decides to hang up his boots but people speaking to him would not have the Prime Minister standing opposite them but only his special delegate.

Joseph Muscat does not appoint special delegates because he listens to people himself. People trust Joseph Muscat so much more than Lawrence Gonzi because they have met him, spoke to him and found him engaging. In Castille, people are not greeted by the Prime Minister but by one of the unelected monarchs who believe that Malta and Gozo are owned by their inner, exclusive clique. Joseph Muscat has been meeting people from day one.

At least, Dr Busuttil is an elected politician, which is admittedly a plus. But still he is not the Prime Minister. He is the special delegate.

What is indeed really incredible is that the Prime Minister honestly believes that his government is doing a good job. “We have a good government which is delivering,” he told his councillors, “but that is not enough. You have to meet people and listen to their everyday concerns you see.” Of course, I agree with him about the meeting people and listening to them part but what I find amazing is that the Prime Minister is genuinely convinced that we have the best government Malta can ever have in the circumstances.

We have a looming deficit which is running so much out of hand that Brussels invited the Maltese boys and girls at the Finance Ministry to revise the expenditure down by some €40 million only a few days after the reading of the budget speech. Inflation is hitting people hard and more families are struggling to maintain the standard of living which they used to lead until a few years ago while those at the risk of poverty are facing though times.

In education, we are being told by every single top-notch institution such as the European Commission, World Economic Forum and what have you that too many students are falling on the wayside after reaching the age of 16. In the health sector, last year we witnessed 7,000 patients – almost the size of a small to medium village in Malta – being hospitalised in the corridors of Mater Dei as if they were some piece of luggage waiting outdoors. In the environmental sector, we saw the government choosing the highly polluting heavy fuel oil to run the BWSC power station extension.

The utility bills are among the highest in Europe and shoot up even when the price of oil goes down. And to add insult to injury, while our elderly are trying to figure out how on earth they can pay a utility bill which is as much as 50% of their monthly pension, the Prime Minister decides to give himself and his colleagues a €600 per week pay rise by stealth.

Not to mention the state of the prisons, the urgent need of reforms in the field of justice, the acute lack of employment opportunities for the Gozitan youths in Gozo, the precarious jobs which are hounding the employment market, the lack of investment in R&D, the poor sense of judgement shown in the commissioning of a roof-less theatre or the excavation of a quarry/museum in front of St John’s Co-Cathedral or the abject lack of respect for the will of the people by the Prime Minister following the divorce referendum.

And yet the Prime Minister is still under the illusion that his government is doing fine and if anything, the problem lies in the one-to-one approach with constituents. The appalling result for the PN in the last local council elections speaks volumes, but apparently the Prime Minister does not want to listen.

Ah! Now he has his special delegate...

Dr Bonnici is the Opposition Spokesperson for Higher Education, University, Research and Culture and Member of the Foreign and European Affairs Parliamentary Committee