Labour leader Joseph Muscat is constantly giving the impression that his party knows something about the way the economy should be managed that the government does not. The question is: Does it really?

Why should the electorate take his word for it when the party chooses not to take it fully into its confidence and spell out its formula to reduce the country’s deficit and debt? Oh, yes, he would do that just before the election, as he once said he would. But what credibility would that carry so close to an election?

Dr Muscat is doing more than promising to ensure a deficit reduction. He has also undertaken that, if elected, his party in government would reduce, “in a sustainable and responsible” manner, the water and electricity rates. He knows there is no grievance stronger than that about the high water and electricity rates and, come the next election campaign, he is determined to milk the political benefits of the issue dry, which, politically speaking, is not altogether unreasonable. The Nationalist Party would have done exactly the same had it been in Labour’s position.

Dr Muscat is reported as having said that market developments were not always being reflected in the rates and he brought up the rise in the gas prices to back up his argument. His party has also said it is committed to convert the Delimara power station into a gas-fired one in order to reduce energy bills and produce cleaner energy.

But is it not strange that it is not saying anything now about whether or not it would, if elected, reinstate the subsidy on water and electricity to the level it was before the government raised the energy rates? It was the removal of the subsidy that brought about the highest jump in the rates. What is the Labour Party’s stand on it today?

Again, in all probability the party would say that it would decide about it close to an election, when it publishes its electoral programme. Fine, but does all this make for sensible politics? Never mind those who do not care about the details of an issue and are prepared to vote blindly to the political party whom they have always supported. These have to be fed their regular dose of political propaganda to keep them alive to their party’s cause. But what about the rest? Does the PL think that the way it is talking about matters of vital interest to the island’s economy inspire confidence in its leadership and its thinking? Uncommitted voters will increasingly look out for substance and they are not getting it right now. What they are getting is rhetoric and general policies.

In the latest talk on his party’s radio programme, the Labour leader promised that the change would be spearheaded by people “who know how the economy works, not by accountants who want to balance the books by the end of the legislature”. The Finance Minister, Tonio Fenech, is an accountant and the implication of Dr Muscat’s words is that the minister has not been doing well in his job. Well, despite the highly unfavourable economic circumstances abroad, the situation disproves what Dr Muscat implies, as figures show only too well.

There is another impression the Labour leader is giving of his party, that of living in a world of make-believe, as the PN put it so well in its reply to his comments.