Tony Blair's spin doctor, Alastair Campbell, was in Malta to give us advice on what to do and what not to do. He suggested that it would have been better for us had we remained a colony or, after becoming independent, perhaps refrained from opting for a Republic because the British Monarchy sells well. It has now become a brand. Campbell also gave some form of advice to the Nationalist Party. He is reported to have said that the Nationalist Opposition does not necessarily have to build itself up from scratch but that a winner was a loser who best understood defeat. While I completely disagree with him on the first point, I perfectly agree with him on the second one.  

The problem for a political party, as any other institution, passing through a phase of change, lies in the fact that if this change is leading it to become something different, then the change is not authentic but a corruption of its former self. Change should be done first to reassure party members and the electorate afterwards. If change fails to assure the party-members, then it will definitely not assure the electorate. 

There should not be any opposition or conflict between a party's creed and its political vitality. The contrast between these two positions occurs when a party ceases to follow its belief.  Legal jargon has reduced the concept of political creed to a minimalist form, that is, in word statute. But a political creed is vaster than any statute. 

In other words, the PN does not need to be systematic but rather controversialist. It is the role of the opposition to stir controversy. It is through controversy that our fragile democracy matures and strengthens. The secret of it all is that controversy needs to be expressed gently. It should be a controversy generated through wit. It should be a controversy about the deference of ones values and ideals. We are living in a society, which intrinsically does not belief in truth. It consigned truth to science but even in science what really matter are questions of opinion and images. Campbell is an expert in this.  By their nature, opinions and images are not truths. In this new political world, communication and style are taking precedence over substance.

Campbell would justify all this by saying that ideas change. One cannot disagree with him on this. Definitely, ideas tend not to remain the same. This is what he had done when he invented the concept of New Labour in the UK. The problem lies in the fact that when ideas develop, they become something different. When development in politics is authentic, it will be beneficial to society. But when it is not authentic, it leads to corruption. 

Politics like faith always precedes intellectual inquiry. Faith without inquiry becomes mere superstition. If political parties stop asking questions, they risk relegating themselves to a superstitious state. But unlike religion, politics speaks through material symbols.

Politics boils down to a question of authenticity. The party that succeeds in making the best authentic appearances is the party, which is destined to win elections. Thus, unlike what is normally preached in politics, a victory does not derive from a position of opinion but from one of knowledge. 

For this reason, I don't think that the electorate is much concerned about maintaining tradition or embracing modernity. What the electorate is concerned with is to distinguish sincerity from political artificiality. For this reason, it is the imagery conveyed through the medium of communication that ends up playing a pivotal role.