While replying to Joseph Muscat’s criticism of the Budget, the Prime Minister referred to the PN’s unkept promise to reduce the highest rate of income tax, which Dr Gonzi had indicated he would implement in the first Budget after the 2008 election.

Dr Gonzi justified his action by saying that promises made in electoral manifestoes “then have to be readjusted”. What the Prime Minister said, while keeping a straight face, means that no promise written in the PN’s electoral programme can be taken at face value, because each and every promise made is subject to readjustmen! In other words, it can be forgotten and not implemented, as happened to quite a few promises in the PN’s 2008 electoral manifesto.

Voters are hence warned to keep Dr Gonzi’s ‘readjustment’ of promises well in mind when the next PN electoral programme is made public. And to have real transparency – also promised by Dr Gonzi –I suggest that at the end of the PN manifesto, the following is added: “There is no guarantee that the promises found in this electoral programme will be implemented, as they are all subject to readjustment, and hence can be forgotten.”