You walk down the street and realise you've stepped on dog excrement left on the pavement by its owner. You can't get a night's rest because your neighbour is drilling away at the dead of night. After spending an eternity stuck in traffic you finally get to the bottle-neck - somebody double-parked on a main road to get his daily dose of pastizzi. Your quiet escape to the beach is ruined by the nearby kiosk's stereo blaring at full blast. Walk into hospital from the University side and witness hospital staff, patients and relatives smoking away and littering the hospital entrance with discarded plastic coffee cups and cigarette butts.

Try pushing your elderly relative in his wheelchair on any pavement and it's an impossible task.  Tables and chairs occupy the space. Enemalta planted an electricity pylon in the middle of the pavement. You have no choice but to get off the pavement onto the busy street endangering both your lives. When you're finally knocked down by a speeding motorcyclist overtaking on the inside lane the ambulance can't get you to hospital because everybody ignores its blue lights and siren.

Disabled citizens can't find a blue parking space because they're taken up by able-bodied persons who somehow got a blue badge sticker.  Or somebody without one decided to park in a blue bay anyway.

The traffic lights haven't yet gone green but the driver behind you is honking his horn, hanging out of the window and hurling profane abuse at you.

Your neighbour is demolishing his property and building a towering block.  He's got a permit for five storeys but he's building ten.  As the juddering of his digger shakes you to the core you wonder whether it's wise to stay put or whether better rush out before it's too late. Your reports to the police went unheeded.  The contractor your neighbour hired has friends in high places and no BCA official turned up despite a litany of complaints from the entire neighborhood. The architect was prosecuted over the collapse of another property but he's still remotely supervising the excavation.

Your work colleague already took 28 days of sick-leave, leaving you to carry the can. The last time she was on sick she even uploaded photos of her day at the Blue Lagoon while you slaved away doing her job and yours.  The day after a staff party half your colleagues called in sick.  The half who didn't had to do double work.

Those aren't the actions of conscientious citizens who have the common good at heart.  That's happily jettisoning all moral obligations and civic duties.

Your son waited for weeks for his driving test but your parish priest messaged the minister and got his nephew his test within days.  Your daughter failed her test four times but your neighbour's son got his licence despite almost running several people over on a zebra crossing.  Your sister spent years studying hard but all she got was a lousy job doing dirty work. Her friends from Pulse who worked as ONE reporters got directorships on government boards and direct orders from Labour. They've already bought their own property but your sister can't even get a loan.

Despite having a law degree your cousin is working for a mobile phone company doing menial tasks. But Joseph Cuschieri's daughter, George Vella's grand-daughter was made a government consultant on a €50,000 package within a week of completing her studies. Within months she got a €13,000 pay rise. In two years she got three lucrative government jobs.

Luke Dalli, Helena Dalli's son and former ONE show host, was made legal consultant for Arts Council Malta when he was just 25.  Now he's been elevated to Arts Council chairman by Owen Bonnici - without a call for application or selection process.   Former Labour MP Luciano Busuttil was appointed CEO at the Authority for Integrity in Sports.  He messed up and was replaced by another former Labour MP Jean-Claude Micallef. He messed up too and resigned soon after.

And yet not a whimper of protest at the sheer injustice.  Nobody bats an eyelid.  Labour keeps forging ahead in the polls. Robert Abela has trust ratings most European leaders would kill for.

Labour has found the formula of success.  It's wagered there are far more voters who break the rules than stick to them. Labour overlooks the raging incivility, the rampant transgressions, the blatant criminality of its citizens, and its citizens overlook Labour's abuse.

Labour knows the majority demand their own interest be put ahead of the common good.  So Labour meets their demands. Whether it's hunters and trappers, cannabis users, developers, businessmen, restaurant owners, band club enthusiasts, fireworks fanatics, contractors. They get what they want - even if it ruins the country.

That majority of egoistic rule-breakers condone, even support a government that openly breaks the rules, especially if it breaks the rules for them. That majority can identify with Labour - our leaders are like us.

When hundreds of people were caught stealing electricity Labour pardoned them.  The majority supported Labour's leniency. Probably there were far more stealing electricity than the few hundreds who were caught.  When hundreds more received disability benefits they weren't entitled to, Labour granted them a presidential pardon.  Labour knew the majority would support its clemency.  Those who stick to the rules felt cheated.  They were incensed that liars and criminals were being rewarded.  But Labour knows those objecting constitute only a small minority.

Labour knows the vast majority of us double-park, let their dog foul the pavement, evade taxes, litter, break the rules when it suits us. Labour knows they appeal to the majority when they break the rules, condone rule-breaking, pardon criminals. The majority refuses to censure Labour for its corruption and transgressions. Instead of chafing under Labour's abuse, the majority provides Labour its full-throated support. Most derive pleasure and excitement from Labour's brazen impropriety. Besides they also get a kick out of attacking "the establishment", those stiff self-righteous sticklers for the rules, especially when one of them is caught in a scandal of his own.

We just love rogues and scoundrels. That sympathy with transgressors is enmeshed into our culture. Labour keeps winning because it appeals to voters' basest instincts.  Those same instincts might elect an entirely new (or not so new) Opposition Leader who might yet beat Labour at its own game.