Schoolchildren had a normal school day yesterday, so did the teachers and so did the parents (without all the hassle what to do with children without school). The MUT announced strike was off and everything was normal in this country.

So after all the fireworks of the past week, all was well. And all’s well that ends well. So that’s it? Or is there anything else to say?

What happened was a model exercise how not to communicate with stakeholders and then how to turn a bad situation into one that is far worse. And how to go down the way out of which there is only a humiliating retreat to be done.

There was a public consultation carried out some months ago. The teachers and their union made their points, expecting these points to be taken into consideration when the legislative proposal was finalized.

Then, last week, they found out no such consideration had been made: the text of the bill was practically as it had been at the beginning of the public consultation.

Then the union and the teachers were helpfully helped to see that the wording was particularly threatening: the warrants could be withdrawn and the process was in the hands of a government-appointed committee.

The problem is that in Malta, memories go back in a long way. Many may have forgotten the 1984 crisis and the schools conflict; many may not have been adults at that time. But that crisis, which led to schools being closed, pupils (including a young Joseph Muscat) having to scurry to unofficial classes in homes, mass vindictive transfers of teachers who had taken part in industrial action, etc. People have not forgotten. (Nor have Labour supporters forgotten their 1980s slogans, it seems.)

The government walked into that with eyes open. There are many interpretations of what happened, but the prime minister’s claim this was all a ‘misinterpretation’ is palpably not true.

The other interpretation was that the government, and sly Minister Evarist Bartolo, tried to pull a fast one on the teachers and were caught out. When they were caught out, they tried to bluff their way out but the union stood firm, even when Dr Muscat said, off the cuff to be sure, that the government was ready to shelve the Bill if the union called off the strike.

The union did not accept the conditionality underlying this proposal and walked out of the meeting with the minister.

The government then had no alternative except to withdraw the three Bills after which the union called off the strike.

What a way to run a country! This unseemly episode is typical of this government which tries to rule with spin and with half-truths. The trust that is the basis of any agreement was absent through and through and this in an area, education, where long-standing issues remain in people’s minds for years and years.