Politics is a bit of a lie. Even honest politicians wear masks of convenience at some point – otherwise how would they ever be seen hugging supporters of every shape, ilk and smell? Would politicians hit the election trail if they were totally honest?

Gordon Brown, then Prime Minister of Great Britain, was practically undone by his appraisal of a supporter of his own party. He didn’t like her – and said so. When he uttered these words, he thought he was saying them in private but in fact his microphone was still on and the whole nation overheard him. From then on he was toast.

Unless you lie a bit, often with a smiling mask, you will not be successful.

When the economy is faring badly, no politician in power will say with a grin that they have failed. Even public apologies by politicians are usually half-baked yet they are delivered all the time.

Since Independence, our gang of politicians from Labour and the PN have fed us their far share of lies throughout these 55 years.

In total the PN has been in power longer than Labour but it seems that, by the time Labour are booted out, they will have outstripped their rivals by a few years or decades.

The parties, and the people closest to them, take the spoils while we, the men and women of this isle, suffer their idiocy and lies. We have to bear the consequences of their harmful effect on our environment and our reputation.   

There has never been a party in power to rival the Labour of today: not only is it on a winning streak, but it has decimated its opponents.

Malta – or rather the vast majority of its electors – is transfixed. If all the national polls are to be believed, the numbers flocking to the Labour fold are impressive. Labour, personified by Joseph Muscat, is on a roll.

Malta and its people seem to think that the economic boom through which we are living happened – and is happening – only thanks to our Prime Minister. He smiles and lifts his baton and money flows into our pockets, into the economy.

This is all built on a lie. The economic boom is real enough and definitely no fairy tale: people see and feel their economic well-being.

What is built on lies is what Joseph Muscat has managed to feed to the people. What he did was make people believe he was going to be different. He made himself out to be a new politician, an honest man who would fight corruption and heal the wounds inflicted by the previous governments.

From the Opposition benches, and when he campaigned to be Prime Minister, Muscat was all smiles, all lovely words, affable with all journalists and ready to be interviewed at all times and in any places. He said that Malta would become the best in Europe. He said that transparency, good governance and meritocracy would be his achievable goals. He proclaimed he would be the champion of the environment.

This bit about the environment was such a blatant lie that it is amazing how he managed to stop himself from falling about laughing. While saying great things about the environment, he was in open cahoots with the hunting fraternity and the building developers: in-your-face, brazen dishonesty the likes of which we had rarely, if ever, witnessed before.

Lie upon lie was fed to the people and the people stood there and applauded. But enthusiastic applause does not make the message any less wrong. People will go on applauding Joseph Muscat and his band because they feel he has delivered – delivered them from whatever state they were in before he ascended the Castille throne.

The Labour view has changed from a promise of total eradication of corruption to a tacit acceptance of it because there always is corruption. What is conveniently forgotten is that the level of corruption we have now is unprecedented.

Like the lies that politicians indulge in, corruption will always be with us. But the present levels of corruption have reached levels unimaginable until some years ago and nobody seems to care.

Feeding lies, living by them and never really addressing the truth has become the new way of the Labour Party, especially of Joseph Muscat.

Thankfully, Pinocchio is just a fairy tale because, were it not, by now Joseph Muscat’s nose would be longer than a developer’s tower.