There's one best way by which to decide about the proposals put forward by the political parties in this election campaign. Just ask: How will the proposals being made really affect working people in their everyday lives today and in the future?

The expression "working people" is no longer in fashion. Even less fashionable, if I understand correctly the signs of the times, is the word "worker". When it gets mentioned, this is just to put forward the claim that one and all are workers at the end of the day, including all the business barons! The eagerness with which parties preach the virtues of national unity is undermining the ability to recognize how social injustices emerge within the community.

Even so, one can still come to some resolution by asking: Which of the parties is showing, on the basis of its proposals, that it has the best understanding of the interests of working people in order to really safeguard them? 

For this as I see it, there is a clear reply: it's Labour. Which does not mean that Labour is denying or throwing overboard the interests of other social strata. To the contrary - at times it pays too much attention to not let this happen.

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PROPOSALS

The proposals that the parties have been making for the future are mostly expressed in quasi-managerial... or if you prefer, engineering terms. Instead of taking off from comprehensive political statements about the kind of society parties claim they want to build, they present a list of projects in all sectors or almost, that will be carried out in order to solve particular problems or to create new benefits for individuals.

In this, Labour starts from the premise that everything... or almost... is just fine, while the PN's starting point is that everything is going to the dogs. Projects are almost never brought together into a sustained political narrative, apart from their being framed as intended to better service the needs of the citizen (though this last word is no longer used, unlike what's going on in the rest of Europe). One could argue that this way of presenting a political programme (independently of whether one believes in it or not) is superior to what used to be done in the past because the approach is more concrete and down to earth than widely phrased political declarations that leave undefined what exactly will be undertaken.

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LESS POLITICS

In fact the election campaign has been less "turbulent" than usual - although this does not necessarily apply to what has been happening on the social media. There have been up to now minimal personal clashes or scandal mongering. Even the mobilisation of people in squares has been rather limited. As far as I know, there has been little appetite to call mass meetings in the larger spaces of the island, like the Floriana granaries, the Luxol area in St Julian's or Ta' Qali.  Years ago there would be intense competition between the parties when trying to secure one of these sites for political activities.

Some people will consider such a development as progress since they point to how the interest in politics has cooled and is coming to resemble what happens abroad. Others will worry that it shows how more people will end up not voting at all.