In any government discussion, the words "overload" and "stress" go together. They represent an ever-present danger to stable and good government.
Come with me to the National Office of Statistics. You will be told that gross government debt continues to peak merrily notwithstanding the admonitions from Brussels and the International Monetary Fund. Come with me next to the Ministry of Finance. You will find that nothing the ministry has done has given the necessary buoyancy to the vital sectors on which we depend for Malta's foreign earnings. Worse still, it is only now that the ministry has experienced a rude awakening on realising its past shortcomings, when it comes to collecting revenue arrears.
Our relative decline is assuming a degree of permanence, notwithstanding the fact that ministers have pressed every button. None of them, nor their spin doctors, know which button, if any of them, will yield the desired results.
If one takes away the hype, nothing seems to be working anymore.
Power brings as much frustration as satisfaction, particularly in a country in relative decline. It is not so much a case of one political party scoring off another. It is the case where a government in office faces an enduring problem and being judged by its success or failure.
In such a situation, a Prime Minister in office is more like a climber on a rock face -unable to go up or down - than a general ordering his troops wherever he wishes around the landscape.
In Lawrence Gonzi's case, the stress is most in evidence. He has been in the saddle for long enough. Yet, the cost of government continues to edge up. Growth prospects are bleak. Disposable income is fast being eroded by taxation and inflation. Adverse conditions in some of our vital markets do not make the prevailing situation in Malta any easier. If anything, they make it all the more necessary to restructure and compete. But, if the spirit may be willing, the flesh is decidedly weak.
Maltese bureaucracy is ill-prepared and, moreover, ill-disposed to make any big leap forward. Successive reports from Brussels bear this out with disconcerting monotony. They are reinforced by many pronouncements from the office of the Auditor-General.
At the political level, there is a dearth of "managerial material". In the public forum, perceptions are gloomy and disenchantment has taken the upper hand after so many broken promises.
Scant success is a barricade against forward movement. The situation is evocative of The Sorcerer's Apprentice. "The waters rise. The apprentice rushes around with his bucket. And none of us knows when, or whether, the magician will come home." The medical sector deteriorates; the state of the roads in certain areas approximates Third World standards; public transport continues to leave much to be desired; taxation erodes the tender sinews of most families as they approach the poverty line.
Add to this the increasing number of expeditions Dr Gonzi has had to make overseas since Malta's EU accession and you will understand under what stress he has had to work and what quality time he could afford to organise Malta's breakthrough from its present predicament. This is why Malta's plight is evocative of Winston Churchill's famous words : "The compass has been damaged. The charts are out of date"!
Malta has reached a stage where the main concern of thinking citizens is the nation's survival, which takes priority over the political fate of the powerful.