Back in 1997, Tony Blair’s election anthem was Things Can Only Get Better. The upbeat tune was the musical backdrop to Labour’s huge electoral victory. Fed up with the seemingly interminable Tory rule, the free-market excesses of Margaret Thatcher’s government and the hypocrisy of John Major’s ‘back-to-basics’ campaign, the British public gave the Tories the boot and ushered in the Blair years.

The Labour Party is fast taking on the guise of the Marshmallow Party – all sweetness and light but little substance- Claire Bonello

‘New’ Labour was supposed to bring about a transformation of Britain where there would be no more obstacles to social mobility and essential services would be improved. Blair’s Labour Party would bring about a vibrant multicultural society – the ‘Cool Britannia’ buzz of the late 1990s.

We all know how that ended up. The shambolic last months of Gordon Brown’s term of office, the constant infighting between top Labour politicians, and the people’s increasing disillusionment with Labour’s dependence on the use of spin.

Of course, you could argue that Labour’s defeat at the polls in 2010 was simply due to a political party overstaying its welcome and running out of steam. But that wouldn’t be entirely true. With hindsight you can see that the Labour Party had sown the seeds of its eventual downfall even during the 1997 electoral campaign and in those first heady years with Blair as Prime Minister.

Looking back at the trajectory of the Labour Party in Britain isn’t just a nostalgia trip for political anoraks. By looking at the way things panned out for Blair’s party, we can have a good idea of what’s in store for political parties which adopt the same methods and campaign style. Because despite the fact that both the PN and the PL have borrowed heavily from the recent Barack Obama campaign, Blair’s 1997 campaign and mode of governing was really the blueprint for the major parties in Malta.

There are so many similarities and ideas lifted from the Blair bible it makes you wonder if they will have the same results as the original.

When Blair rode off into the sunset (or rather to a life of lucrative public speaking engagements), the writer Gill Corkindale wrote an article analysing why his leadership journey failed. The following are a few of the observations she made – failings which both Lawrence Gonzi and Joseph Muscat are guilty of.

To start off with, Corkindale mentions an agenda that relied on launching too many initiatives and not seeing them through. According to her, both the Blair and Brown governments proposed a deluge of initiatives intended to give the impression of an impressive and energetic reform-bent government bent on reform. However, very few of these were actually implemented or delivered any real or lasting change.

On the home front, the phantom projects and superficial initiatives of the Gonzi administration are well-documented. The Gonzi Government gave us internet portals, phantom IT hubs (Smart Island and Smart City) and highly-publicised grandiose projects (White Rocks Sports Complex).

Now – as Joseph Muscat invites us to gorge on a buffet of pre-electoral promises, the PN follows suit. If Muscat offers tablets to Year 4 students, Gonzi dishes them out to all – from pre-school tykes to teenagers.

As soon as Labour announces its rather alarming Mepa regularisation and amnesty scheme, we get a legal notice about sanctioning under the PN’s watch. Labour is going to give teachers a paid sabbatical, the PN will do a Vanni Pulè on the deficit and have the public finances out of the red within a couple of months.

It’s all very good fun, of course, but these crazy pre-electoral promises come with a cost. Honouring them will land the country deeper in debt. Ignoring them will create even more disillusionment with the PN and the PL.

Another characteristic which the PN government shares with that of Blair is its over-reliance on rebuttal and spin. Besides its dependence on favourable media coverage by PN-friendly programme presenters, the PN relies greatly on them to spin its lines.

On the other hand, the Labour Party is fast taking on the guise of the Marshmallow Party – all sweetness and light but little substance.

This – in effect – is the major shortcoming being shown by both the Labour and the Nationalist Party – the complete departure from reality, launching us into the realm of fantasy politics where the belief that things are getting better can only be sustained by the dependence upon hype and spin. When we look at the pre-electoral promises in the cold, hard post-election light, things will appear very different.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt

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