We are in the middle of a legislature, getting closer and closer to Christmas, and yet we seem to be right in the middle of an election campaign.

Both major parties are intent on trying to score points, issuing one statement after another, in reply to each other, as the political tension grows.

And yet the election is two and half years away, more or less.

Of course, both the Labour Party and Nationalist Party are doing their job.

Both are trying to win voters and both are trying to poke holes in their opponents' behaviour, policies and whatnot.

The Nationalist Party seems to have been re-energised after the June elections for the European Parliament and local councils. It is clear that the results obtained have given it new hope. In June, the PN managed to substantially cut down its disadvantage - it lost both elections, but in the local councils polls it reduced the deficit from 47,000 to 20,000 votes, and in the MEP election it brought the difference down from 42,000 to 8,400.

For many years, the distance between the two parties was too great to think that the PN stood a chance to turn the tables. In the last general election in 2022, the PN lost by 39,000 votes, a record defeat. Since then, it has made strides forward and, after June's results, it understands that it is in a better position to challenge Labour. The scandals that continue to hit the government have helped in no small way to push the PN closer to Labour, but it must then understand that it must do much more to show itself as an alternative government.

For its part, the Labour Party has made important changes after the June elections, perhaps thinking that it needed some kind of renewal of its administration to appear fresh. It has changed the people in most of its top position - other than its leader - in a bid to bring in new ideas.

What we have noticed in the past months - practically since the June elections - is that the Nationalist Party appears to be more active, and the Labour Party doing its best to keep up. (The PL has great assistance from the government when it comes to replying to what the PN says or does, as there have been many occasions when PN statements were answered by the ministry involved.)

It often happens that minutes after media releases are issued by the PN, a reply is received from the Labour end. As we said earlier, they are both doing their job and it is understandable that they seek to reply to each other to put their arguments forward.

But it must also be pointed out that there have been times when statements appeared to have been issued just for the sake of being reported by the media which, it must be said, does not always comply. While this works for the parties' own TV and radio stations and social media pages, it has much less resonance with the independent media.

Political parties, like everyone else, should be speaking up when they have something to say, and not just to say something.