It's not only governments which are affected by the problem; it exists in the private sector as well. Public relations have gained such a salience in certain corporations that some put them at the apex of their action strategies. At times, the result is that they end up accepting in full what is presented by their public relations messages.

Which is the worst approach possible, for it then happens that what is being unsuccessful in the organization's action scenario tends to get ignored or denied. In politics it leads to the sidelining or misinterpretation of the signals that reveal citizens' discontent. In business, products and services which have reached the end of their life cycle are kept on the market and similarly for new sales offers that fail to gain traction with consumers.

The problem would be that the morale and sense of identity within the company itself has been allowed to become too tightly geared to what the PR is projecting.  If the PR message is blurred because it is acknowledged that difficulties have emerged, the risk would be that the commitment and initiative of employees as they go about their duties gets undermined.

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THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY

From Germany, France, Italy and the UK among others, the economic news is not so encouraging. The greatest worries are about Germany where the coalition government is stalling. While early elections have become quite probable, manufacturing industry - especially in the car sector - is facing huge difficulties. In France, what is effectively a minority government has had to increase taxes in a big way (although only on the "rich", it said) to cut down on the deficit which is among the largest in Europe, even as private sector operators forsee problems in their traditional markets.

Recently, the fear has grown that a trade war with China will follow the introduction by the European Commission of tough new tariffs on the importation of electric cars from that country. It might be though that the Europeans are now having to pay the bill for the political choices they have been making - as they tried to implement all the aims they set for themselves in an ever expanding list, while failing to dedicate sufficient resources to really carry out their objectives.

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MODERN HISTORY

A good number of studies have been published about the history of Malta when it was ruled by the Knights of St John, less about the time when the British were in charge. But the least in number are the studies dealing with the country's modern history. True, up to just before Independence, there's Professor Joe Pirotta's opus. However, what happened after Independence has been reviewed synthetically only in a minimal way.

There do exist theses which deal with the modern period and some books that cover it but they all do so from a particular aspect. We still lack a wide description of events that covers economic and social developments while relating them to the political background. Indeed, one meets people who are more knowledgeable about what happened during the Great Siege of the sixteenth century than about Maltese events dating back forty years.