The Boy Who Cried Wolf is one particular pearl of wisdom which, is fair to say, sums up what Labour managed to achieve for our country and our people. It is worth pointing out that this fable gave the English language the ‘cry wolf’ idiom, which, in a nutshell, means to lie. This phrase refers to a person who lies or complains about something even though no real problems are present.

Let us go back in time, to just before the 2013 election in which the Labour Party seized power. Oh boy, did they cry wolf! They embarked on a deceptive campaign based on a whole series of made-up wolves, some of which come to mind and are worth comparing with the realities that Labour has plunged us into today.

One of the most blatant fake wolves back then were the from-the-hip accusations of corruption. Oh, how they screamed and wailed about the gift of a worthless imitation arloġġ tal-lira, home-made by an amateur in their attempt to link a scrupulous government minister to the so-called oil-scandal. Saying that that wolf-claim pales into insignificance when compared to the rampant corruption that we have been hearing about every single day since they came to power – corrupt land deals, secret Panama accounts, fraudulent hospitals give-away deals, power-station kickbacks – the list goes on and on.

At first, as all these real wolves started circling around us and closing in, many of us were not as yet convinced. However, the end result of an administration that is as holey and smelly as the Swiss cheese in my fridge after two days without electricity, is that there are consequences. One of these consequences is that the 1980s labour bowser, supplying households with water, has been replaced by the 2020s labour fuel-fired generators spewing their exhaust right outside people’s homes. Remember the ‘cancer factory’ wolf, anyone? The power supply disaster that we are facing at the moment did not come about by chance. It is the direct result of corruption in the acquisition of power stations, the liquefied gas tanker on permanent station in Marsaxlokk Bay and the ensuing dearth of available funds to invest in distribution infrastructure. Were it not for the Nationalist investment in the inter-connector, another Labour fake wolf, where we would be today?

The wise Nationalist investment of EU funds into waste-water treatment facilities had led to our islands enjoying bathing waters that regularly classified as among the cleanest and clearest in the European Union. Where are we today? Are we also being kept in the dark about the health hazards associated with swimming in our bays?

The chaotic traffic situation defies description. Once again, this is the result of bad planning at both long-term and short-term measures. We have seen key arterial roads going from one- to two- and back to one-lane, causing chaos galore. Excavation works in one road are frequently carried out at the same time as the road earmarked as a deviation is also being dug up.

I could go on and on, making reference to the situation in the healthcare system, education, safety at work, with fatalities on constructions sites having shocked the nation time after time, with no credible action ever being taken by this government. But perhaps the biggest wolf cry of them all was that shamelessly emblazoned on a 2013 Labour campaign billboard, promising meritocracy. Appointments to key governance position have been, in these past eleven years, handed out on a musical chairs system, rewarding inner-circle party faithful with the cushy jobs that our Prime Minister seems to have woken up to. Their incompetence, unsuitability for the job and unjustified sense of entitlement mean that the service that the entities they run should be providing has become pie in the sky. Suffice it to mention that certain noted individuals have been put in charge of a succession of public authorities, their failure at one being considered a qualification for being appointed to the next. How much worse could it be than having an arrogant and spendthrift Film Commissioner, whose support to Maltese film productions is zero, while exorbitant sums are spent on self-glorifying film festivals.   When asked specifically to mention Maltese productions, he waffled on senselessly, seemingly not aware of productions, such as The Limestone Cowboy (excuse the pun but so many of which we have around), Luzzu and Simshar, to name but a few.

The incompetence of such appointees filters down and impacts us. While they sit in their Labour-built ivory towers, their garbage administration and management drops down through the ranks, and ends up all around us. We are literally wallowing in the sleaze and slime generated by eleven years of the people who cried wolf, when of wolves there were none.  They themselves were the wolves, who artfully donning sheep’s clothing, or hiding their real faces while using grandmotherly tones to guile the electorate into handing them power. Once ensconced in Castille, off went the sheepskins and out came their true nature. The current state of affairs, that we are now all aware of and suffering every day – at home, at work, on our roads and even on our beaches  –  is the result. Is it time for them to point at another fake wolf? The blame-the-foreigner game is afoot. We are now being told that it is all the fault of foreign workers. Well, who started imported cheap labour to line the pockets of corrupt officials in the first place? Like in Aesop’s fable, crying wolf can work once, twice or even three times. But we the people are not as stupid as the Labour Party makes us out to be or wants us to be. None of us are ġaħan (apologies to Edward Zammit Lewis for borrowing the term he used to describe Labour voters). The Labour Party promised transparency. The only thing that is now transparent is the true character of these wolves who promised heaven, and delivered hell – The Wolves of Castille Square.