The corpse, long thought dead, is surprisingly showing some slight signs of life. The days of Halloween are drawing near.

The corpse, that is the Nationalist Party, held a protest march on Sunday which was reasonably attended and, it seems, reasonably well organised.

No party flags were to be seen but only Malta flags, which gave the overall impression this was one of the Repubblika demonstrations.

The overall impression was definitely not a Repubblika event. The theme was the dwindling standard of living and the rising inflation. This was reinforced by a speech by veteran journalist and officer in successive PN administrations going back to Borg Olivier times, Joe Zahra, who has continued to write well-informed articles usually posted on Facebook at 5.45am but so far disregarded by the party at large, at least till now.

There were also two young speakers, one from Gozo, but no other MP, as has become customary. Party leader Bernard Grech gave the keynote address taking care to include most of the current concerns in the country and to portray the Abela administration as one for the benefit of insiders but not of the ordinary people.

As the first step in trying to resuscitate a dead body, it was not a bad try, though it must improve in the future with more build-up and so on.

Fundamentally, however, the harder decisions still await resolution. If we take any issue facing the country we will see that it is not enough to dedicate one sentence by the party’s leader and that sentence instilling anger at Robert Abela.

Take any one issue from those facing the country and you will see what I mean.

Let’s take first the state of the economy, as well described by Zahra. With Budget Day fast approaching this will no doubt be amply dissected over the coming days. The point of the march was that the ‘best in Europe’ country has some ingrained problems that have been exacerbated by the government’s profligate approach in election year and which the minister of finance has been (ineffectively?) trying to curb ever since.

The government must not be allowed to distort public concern by pointing out the troubles besetting Liz Truss and other governments to hint that our economic problems come ‘from abroad’ and to assuage public concern with a Cola increase that may cripple the industry or an ARMS rebate that will be accepted by most people just like the pre-election cheques were.

The government must be pressed to come clean about what’s going to happen to Air Malta and also to other State holdings like Gozo Channel and its restructuring of other people’s buildings which it is renting at an exorbitant rate. Or the Malta Business Registry, housed in a showroom at an exorbitant rent.

Each day the wide opposition in the country that is wider than the official Opposition comes up with stories of huge packages given to people with no other claim except party loyalty.

Here however the PN must come clean and admit its share in the scandals of its time which have been allowed to fall by the wayside even though, honestly, there is simply no comparison with what is happening now.

The two parties follow a very similar economic pattern but this has been tweaked under Joseph Muscat with his sale of passports which has been and continues to be condemned by Europe and which the PN leader continues to hold back from a blanket condemnation (maybe because so many PN supporters are willing participants).

Then Muscatonomics widened the entry into Malta of so many Third Country Nationals who, we were told, are the guarantee that we will continue to get our pensions. The country has been irremediably changed as a result. Malta has become a multi-cultural country and there is no going back, despite what is said every day by fans of Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini.

What can be done and what this government is not doing, except for some high-profile police actions, is to better control the influx of people especially from Italy with just a limited work permit. There is, as can be seen from the huge popularity of specific websites, a persisting huge demand for workers.

But what has happened has been to fuel the construction industry which continues to devour land when this island is so terribly short of space.

The PN may be accused of having let the genie out of the bottle with its confounded reform of development zones in 2006 and the allowing of more storeys on buildings in residential areas. It can retort by blaming the previous Labour governments for the slum-like conditions in areas like Bugibba, Gzira and Marsascala but what’s the use now when what’s done is done?

In short, the PN must address this wide issue and come up with a novel solution, though I can’t see how it has to be done. It must be a solution that appeals to the wider segment of people rather than just to a select minority (which maybe is not afflicted with the problems of dense crowded residential areas).

On the other hand, letting everything remain as it is offers no solution. A government is there to provide solutions, not to just coast along.

There is so much for a party in opposition to say, especially with regards to this administration fuelled by pandering to the favoured and in this Bernard Grech is on to a rich seam but past (painful) experiences show the futility and worse of going for the jugular and turning debate in this country to personalised attacks.

There is so much to say. This government’s mishandling of media reform is being widely criticised outside Malta and by only just a restricted segment here. But then Bernard Grech for all the red and white flags still steers free from mentioning and honouring Daphne Caruana Galizia and all those allegations of corruption in high places.

There are wider issues that the party must tackle not by speeches at protests but by serious open debate. Such as, already hinted, the state of our environment.

And then there are toxic issues which carry the danger of splitting the party and putting it at odds with the rest of the country. I am referring to the issue of abortion, about which I do not seem to have found a reference in Sunday’s speech. The PN must not duck this issue.

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