There can hardly be any doubtthat transport has become the major challenge that the nation faces. The question arises: what’s the best way to tackle it? On the one hand, there’s the dismal state of most roads. On the other, it is imperative to mitigate the traffic congestion that is spreading all over. 

For long years, roads were denied the attention they needed. EU funds were spent on some main roads while the condition of many secondary roads was allowed to deteriorate in a big way.

Meanwhile private cars proliferated. It does not seem as if their number will decline shortly. New controls placed on car ownership would raise a huge outcry; the introduction of new and effective methods of public transport seems to be a distant prospect.

The government will apparently be giving priority to the state of the roads, rather than to traffic congestion. A vast programme of repair and maintenance for roads will likely generate greater congestion. For this not to happen, we will need a repeat of the excellent planning and project management seen in the construction of the Gzira flyover, but done on a much wider yet concentrated scale.

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Talking to oneself

From where did the PN get the conviction during the last election campaign that it was doing so well that it stood a chance of victory? Those on the outside of the Nationalist campaign knew the PN was heading towards defeat, even when they were wrong about the size of the margin by which it would occur.

The best explanation of how this happened was provided by Jonathan Shaw, a member of the PN campaign team, whom I remember as one of the best candidates that his party fielded for the election to the European Parliament. In his view, Nationalist decision-makers and militants ended up simply talking to each other and did not realise this was happening. 

They believed that the wave of support which they saw rising in their favour especially from the social media and the newspapers, was welling up from wideranging depths of popular sentiment. However, quite frequently it was the same circles, sometimes active under multiple identities, which were pushing each other and the convinced hardcore towards a mutually shared enthusiasm.

Outside those circles, a totally different scenario was developing.

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Corbyn

After the British election result was published, some people... including comrades of his... tried to belittle the success achieved by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. True, Labour did not win. But this was supposed to be the election that would totally demolish the Labour Party because Corbyn had abandoned the sacred political principles advocated by Tony Blair. On top of which he had no charisma, was too left wing etc. etc.  That indeed had been the rationale which prompted Theresa May to call the election.

Probably many British voters just did not want to hear about Brexit any more. A year ago, they had decided on the issue and that was that. However May only wanted to discuss Brexit.

By contrast, Corbyn brought up the social problems that people were experiencing in their day-to-day lives. He stuck firmly to his left wing approach. He talked directly to the people, without strained rhetoric or prevarication.

Then young people came out to vote. In their majority, they backed Corbyn. That had also happened during Bernie Sanders’ campaign.