Just as had happened with the electoral defeat of 2013, I now await the Nationalist Party’s tortuous process of covering itself in sackcloth and ashes while it writhes in prolonged self-doubt, allowing the Labour Party to steal another three- or four-year march on it.

Nationalist Party activists, supporters and even some of its politicians and members of the administrative hierarchy can be remarkably prone to conditioning by Labour propaganda, to the point where they don’t even know it’s happening to them. Worse still, and this applies mainly to its supporters and those further along the organisational food-chain because politicians at least are supposed to be hyper-aware of propaganda and how it works, they internalise those propaganda messages and allow them to dent their self-confidence and shape their decisions.

The Labour Party has been remarkably successful with its relentless propaganda messages which are designed to condition the mindset and attitude of the Nationalist Party and shape its actions as it wishes. It is now not even bothering to first go through the medium of its television station and its supporters, and from there into the general public via social media. Now we have the Labour leader using his role of Prime Minister to tell the Nationalist Party what it should and shouldn’t do. Because, of course, what the Labour leader really wants to do is give advice to his rivals on how to improve themselves and up their game. But instead of starting off from the point of view of cynicism and telling him to focus on his own outfit because he is certainly not interested in improving theirs, some Nationalist Party activists and supporters take his messages on board, instead of having the nous to work out that they have been carefully constructed to undermine them.

I’m not in the business of self-doubt. Occasionally, there is a rare moment of crisis, from which I quickly recover. Self-doubt is supposed to be the hallmark of intelligent people but really, it’s not. It’s the hallmark of those who are afraid of upsetting people, or who lack confidence in their ability to take a decision. And I think it’s a really bad idea. People are not attracted to those who are unsure of themselves. The minute anybody comes across as wishy-washy, wavering, uncertain or indecisive, they’re finished in any area of public life and probably even private life and the workplace. But in public life, especially. Why is the Labour Party still doggedly throwing rocks at me even now, 27 years after I first became somebody they Officially Don’t Like (I was only 25 at the time, can you imagine)? Other than it’s some kind of pathology, because that level of obsession with one journalist for three decades can only be described as an illness or perversion, it’s because they can’t believe that I’m still standing and haven’t reformed myself to fit their wishes under the onslaught.  So they are going to keep at it until either I or they are in wheelchairs and using walking-aids.

The returning Prime Minister, in his first televised interview on his party station, has already launched what will doubtless be the first of a series of assaults on me, and he’d been in office just two days. Apparently, he believes this to be normal behaviour for the head of government of a European Union member state. But back to the Nationalist Party and its propensity, when targeted by Labour propaganda criticism, to be conditioned by it instead of recognising it for what it is and telling the Labour Party to stuff it and mind its own business, which is actually what people would like to see it do.

The Nationalist Party does self-flagellation rather too well and almost seems to enjoy it, while the Labour Party, with its ghastly history and recent track record of shocking corruption, never apologises or explains, let alone self-flagellates. On the contrary, it boasts, and boasts loudly. And that’s exactly why they get away with it. There are very many people who, when they see a corrupt politician brazen it out, stop doubting the politician and instead start doubting their own judgement of him, or the reports about him. 

You don’t have to go that far, to the point of brazening crimes out to confound the public. At the simplest level, on matters of policy or events, just taking a strong position and sticking to it, no matter what, is very attractive to the public. They might not like the decision or the position itself, but they utterly love the clear stand and the ability to stick to your guns.

Let’s take the sale of Maltese passports. The scheme has become almost mainstream now because the government didn't show the slightest hint of hesitation or regret at the decision, even though it was outrageous not only in and of itself, but because it had not been in the electoral programme and there was no popular mandate for it. Meanwhile, the Nationalist Party was inconsistent in its opposition to it, and ultimately even claimed credit for making it a 'reputable' scheme with a residency requirement that turned out not to be a residency requirement at all, but a flat left empty for the required period. And then several people linked to the Nationalist Party in one way or another, or supporters of it, began selling passports too and the party felt it could not oppose the scheme at all.

That was disastrous, because the government is now presenting the sale of passports as the underpinning of the economy and the Opposition is unable to oppose it on the proper grounds that actually, it is undermining the economy, and that increased reliance on selling passports to generate revenue is a slow-burning recipe for very serious trouble of all kinds.

Instead of campaigning to shift public opinion in its favour, the Nationalist Party has tended to allow itself to be dragged into the orbit of the Labour Party.  I hope it now recognises the fact that after three years of being nice and obliging, of being positive and obedient, of not being rude about its rivals (even though its rivals are unbelievably offensive and make no apologies for doing it), the Nationalist Party only successfully mobilised its supporters, including crowds of young people who in 2013 wouldn’t have been seen dead anywhere near it, and drew the attention of those who had abandoned it, when it began putting rockets under Muscat and his government. That is what people need, and what they want to see done. Because let’s face it, if the Nationalist Party is going to convey the impression that the chaps in the Labour Party aren’t so bad after all, what it’s really doing is telling people ‘You might as well vote for them too.’

The Nationalist Party is now about to have an identity crisis because it lost a snap election which was cynically designed to hand it a defeat, and that shows a real lack of self-confidence. Examinations of conscience are for individual practising Catholics and not for political parties. Political parties are there to acquire a set of guns, stick to them, and use them when necessary. (Note to the government’s various communications aides: this is an expression not to be taken literally.)

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