By ‘the great debate’ I mean the face-to-face between Joseph Muscat and Simon Busuttil on PBS’s TimesTalk this week. It may be obvious for some readers but I assure you not for everyone.

The fact that this needs to be clarified at all probably sums up the achievement of the Nationalist Party during its long period in government. However, it also sums up the major challenge before it now that it is in Opposition.

It was the achievement of the PN to snatch the country from the brink, back in 1987. It took the country from a state in which every formal institution was, in practice, a plaything in politicians’ hands.

Even if you were innocent, you were afraid to be taken to the police for questioning. The Courts declared several confessions to have been forced and invalid. If you were a citizen who simply wanted something that was your right, you had to beg for it on bended knees, and treat a minister like a paternalistic master, instead of as your public servant.

I’m not saying this to dwell on the past but to speak of the future.

In the generation it spent in government, the PN introduced political normality. To be precise, we went from Third World authoritarian normality to European democratic normality. For a long time, everything depended on politics, even things that should not, like whether you had a telephone line or not. The PN put politics in its proper place.

Now, in 2015, you can have a debate between the two main political leaders and many people don’t even notice.

It was this sense of tranquil democratic normality, in which a change of government does not threaten the entire system, that helped a great majority of voters choose Labour in 2013. No matter how bitter the 2013 defeat was for the PN, the sense of confidence in institutions remains a PN achievement to be proud of.

Now, however, this confidence and tranquillity is a challenge to the same PN.

Two years of Labour government have seen institutions progressively undermined. Ministerial arbitrariness is creeping back in. Government transparency? More like government backroom murkiness, with shadowy friends. Accountability? The paper trail often isn’t even there and political responsibility is non-existent.

The public mood in general has not yet caught up with this, however. A lot of confidence remains, although it seems to be more and more like overconfidence.

This brings me to the debate itself. The programme asked Michael Briguglio and Martin Scicluna, neither a political ally of the PN, for their evaluation of the two-year-old Labour government.

Their scores startled even me. On governance and meritocracy, the subject of much Labour poetry before the election, the two opinion makers’ combined score was 6/20.

On the environment, their combined score was 3/20.

On matters related to energy policy, another key electoral pledge by Labour, it was a low pass with 12/20. Even on social matters, civil unions and gender identity legislation notwithstanding, the mark was a low pass.

So much for making us the best in Europe.

It is true that on the economy Briguglio and Scicluna gave a combined score of 15/20. However, both acknowledged the fact that Labour inherited a good economy from the PN.

I would add something else. How sustainable is an economy in the context of miserable failing marks on both the environment and good governance?

It is definitely not a framework for sustainable economic growth as understood within the EU. It looks like economic short-termism, which is exactly what the PN Opposition is underlining.

Many people who watched the debate criticised the two leaders for an unnecessarily sharp tone. They found Muscat to be too patronising. But some people were shocked that Simon Busuttil told the Prime Minister to his face that his behaviour raised suspicions of bribery.

I would have been shocked if the opposite had happened, if Simon Busuttil had NOT said what he did say.

The PN leader keeps drawing attention to the Café Premier scandal, and harps on the Prime Minister’s personal responsibility for the matter, because the whole affair smells of corruption. That is a serious accusation which no one should make lightly.

If Simon Busuttil had backed off from saying it to Muscat’s face, it would have suggested that the accusation wasn’t so serious, after all. Yes, it is sharp language. But we all need to pay sharp attention to what is happening around us.

If you find the language shocking, don’t blame the messenger. Blame those whose appalling standards and political sleaze are making such language necessary.

Claudette Buttigieg is a Nationalist Party Member of Parliament