Before the last general election, Joseph Muscat was so convincing when he said he wanted to bring about a change in the way we do politics that his party won a landslide majority. People believed him and the very fact that they did showed a thirst for change.

Of course, there were other reasons for Labour’s win, but expectations of further improvement in the political climate ran high. However, in less than a year that his party has been in government, Dr Muscat is beginning to erode the trust placed in him. This is mainly due to a style of administration that runs contrary to what people had been (mis)led to expect from the party and, what is more important, to that promised.

What is most striking is that, rather than working towards an improved political climate, Dr Muscat appears to be doing the opposite. His speech in Parliament during the debate on the cash-for-passport scheme is a perfect example of this.

It threw Malta back many years, to times that have long been forgotten or, to be precise, that people want to forget. It was not so much what he said that caused concern, as the manner in which he spoke for most of the time and the way he addressed the Leader of the Opposition.

Lively political debate is par for the course in a democracy, particularly in the House of Representatives, but the kind of speech Dr Muscat made in the debate on the passport scheme will definitely not help bring about the kind of improvement in the political climate people were expecting. The contrary is the case.

Put in a wider context, the speech was not scandalous. Far worse happens all the time in parliaments all over the world; that is, in countries where they have democratic government.

As author and philosopher Trudy Govier has put it so well in a memorandum on insulting as (un)parliamentary practice in the British and Swedish parliaments, controversies often involve rudeness, disrespect, hostility, animosity, name-calling, put-down, insults, ad hominem attacks, misinterpretation, diversions into unnecessary and irrelevant themes, intolerance, dogmatism, wasted energy, failures of communication and waste of time and talent.

Controversies can hardly be avoided, but the least politicians can do is avoid taking extreme stands and, instead, using correct language. The Nationalists too would have to measure their words if they wish to promote consensus-building politics. Winston Churchill, for instance, used the phrase “terminological inexactitude” to mean a lie. There are few, if any, of Churchill’s kind around, but the message is clear.

In Malta, the problem is amplified by the island’s size. What happens in parliament in large countries does not usually filter so strongly among all strata of society as it does in small communities. A speech brimming with strong language like Dr Muscat’s is therefore likely to have an immediate impact.

His tone is worryingly petering down to lower levels. A number of Labour supporters, some of them quite prominent, are saying in the media that Nationalist-leaning critics should belt up because the PN was soundly beaten at the last election. This is at best arrogance, at worst a complete disregard for democracy where everyone should have a voice.

People do not want a return to the political tension of the past and it is up to the government, in particular, to ensure this does not happen.

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