A week after the Great History-Making Two-Cent Handout – or, seven mils, for the nostalgic – Joseph Muscat is still being mocked. The social media are packed with satire, shares, tweets and likes. Midway, Muscat decided that we hadn’t understood a thing and that we had forgotten what was truly golden about the Golden Years of Labour.

So, he went down to Cospicua, jutted out his chin and performed the Golden Oldies from the Soldiers of Steel album. He coaxed, he crooned, he frowned. He made powerful, manly gestures. Somehow, however, the people of Cospicua, the connoisseurs of the real thing, were not turned on. Muscat tried harder. But the fan base did not turn out.

With the social media still cackling at the empty tracts of space in Cospicua, Muscat tried again a few days later. This time, he took a leaf out of Freddie Portelli’s book and promised his audience that the best is yet to come. But Freddie is Freddie. Muscat, on the other hand, has decided to start doing Mintoff.

He gave us all a lecture in Mintoffianomics. He sternly told us we didn’t understand a thing about how the economy worked. Two cents go a very long way for businesses. Anyone who disagreed was out of touch with real people and real families.
So, the vast majority of us, who snorted with laughter and disbelief at Two Cents’ performance, are out of touch with ourselves. Who would have known? Thank you, Prime Minister.

He must be right, though. We remember the Golden Years as years of soaring unemployment, scarcity and shortages, shoddy goods and hidden taxes in the form of bribes. Muscat brought us back down to earth with a timely reminder of how Mintoffianomics brings about prosperity and progress, which was only ruined by the Nationalist governments that succeeded it.

For those of us still in orbit, do not fear. Muscat has more to say.

According to our unreliable memories, the University experience in the Golden Years was that of a stripped-down University – only a handful of places opened in each of the few courses per year – with students paid peanuts for which they were obliged to work, doing menial or clerical jobs, for six months of the year. Brainwashed, we thought that was slave wages not a stipend.

How very out of touch of us! Muscat put us in our proper place when he told us, last week, that it was Mintoffianism that gave all students the stipend. Thank you for the courage to trumpet the truth, Prime Minister.

Then there is his behaviour and the Cabinet’s. Let it never be said he doesn’t keep his promises. He promised increased transparency and we got it: transparent arrogance.

Muscat and around a dozen of his ministers (plus four backbenchers) didn’t bother to file their declaration of assets as MPs on time. They blatantly ignored the Speaker’s own reminder of MPs obligations. But who’s he, anyway?

The very much in-touch Minister of Finance, Edward Scicluna, actually told us he didn’t know he was obliged to file the declaration. It’s good to know the economy is in such attentive hands. It’s even better to learn that the next time one of us neglects to declare our assets for taxation purposes, we will find an understanding Minister to listen to our puzzlement that we had to do it at all.

Scicluna’s own excuse is that he thought the Ministerial declaration was enough. Hold that thought, Edward. Does he mean that he actually filled in the Ministerial declaration which was due in March? Have all the Cabinet members filled in their respective declaration?

Last year these declarations were tabled in Parliament in June, three months after the due date for submission. Is the Prime Minister going to let the MEP elections pass before tabling this year's?

It’s comforting to know that this is just the beginning, that the best is yet to come. So comforting.

Claudette Buttigieg MP

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twitter: @ButClaudette