According to a poll, Simon Busuttil’s rating within his own party stood at just under 80 per cent with nine per cent saying they trust Joseph Muscat. Photo: Matthew MirabelliAccording to a poll, Simon Busuttil’s rating within his own party stood at just under 80 per cent with nine per cent saying they trust Joseph Muscat. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

As I have had occasion to remark, numbers and sums tend to make my brain hurt and my eyes glaze over, so if anything I write in my piece this week creates the impression that I am numerically challenged, I raise my hand in a mea culpa gesture.

Being ignorant of the technique of number-crunching, or anything else, for that matter, has never stopped me from sticking my few c€nts into a debate, though.

Labour’s assorted boosters had no end of a paroxysm of triumphalism when the news broke last Sunday that a survey held by the other paper in English had put the Prime Minister onto a relatively stratospheric plane as compared to his opposite number.

Twitter turned into the blogospheric equivalent of a carcade, which is a word that is not recognised anywhere as evidenced by the little red dots that appear under it when I type it in.

To be sure, the poll doesn’t lend itself in a grist-like manner only for millers of numbers: the mass-psychologists and politico-sociologists among us would have had a field day, were it not for the season torpor that seems to have gripped everyone.

A question they could have sought to answer could have been, for instance: how is it possible that Joseph Muscat’s trust level increased when he had reneged on a promise that was a central plank of his campaign?

Joseph Muscat, the victorious and vanquishing leader, is bathed in the glow of general approval

It’s to his (not) having the new power station up and running by whenever it was that it was promised to be up and running that I refer and the concomitant undertaking that he would resign if it didn’t happen.

To be fair, even at the time that he had said it I had given scant, actually even less, credence to his undertaking, to which I had attributed the rider “pull the other one, it goes Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells” (see what I did there?) and it seems that most everyone did the same, but the point remains that Muscat promised something and didn’t deliver on it.

And, yet, and yet, his trust level, at least on the basis of The Malta Independent’s survey went up.

Go figure, it seems that it’s actually the case that you can fool most people all the time, on this evidence.

What must have given Muscat a leg up the ladder, when you think about it, was his crisp and decisive way of dealing with the Mallia crisis, a crisis that, if nothing else, demonstrated that when it comes to imitating headless chickens, no one beats the Catering Corps.

The question whether it was convenient to be a headless chicken or whether they couldn’t help it remains unprejudiced at this time.

Just to underline the point, when I wrote “crisp and decisive” I was being, how should I put it, sarcastic? Yes, that’s the word, sarcastic. Muscat actually vacillated, abdicated, delayed and employed every other …ed that he could think of to get out of actually firing Manuel Mallia himself and when the man failed to do the decent thing, Muscat had to - reluctantly and almost apologetically - don his boot and aim it at Mallia’s posterior.

Ironically, the survey result, which must have taken into account his, albeit tardy, disposal of Mallia, might give Muscat pause for thought before he reinstates him into a position that measures up to Mallia’s opinion of his worth. On the other hand, the rumours are gaining ground that a comeback is imminent, even perhaps over the festive season. If that does happen, you really have to wonder how these poll things work.

The poll wouldn’t have made happy reading for Simon Busuttil, who saw his own rating within his own party at just under 80 per cent with nine per cent saying they trust Muscat.

It would be interesting to know if the question as put was on an “either/or” basis (which I suspect it was) because it’s possible to trust two people at the same time.

On the other hand, maybe nine per cent of PN voters, at least those who admitted to being Nationalist voters over the phone, trust Muscat to make a mess of things and their answer was wrongly put into the positive trust side of the equation.

It’s a thought, fanciful and liable to have me pilloried but one just the same. Conversely, it’s hardly surprising that respondents who said that they were Labour voters said that they trust Muscat almost to a man or woman.

Busuttil is still finding his feet in a party whose supporters - illogically if you like, but whatever - feel mightily betrayed by the fact that their party got whipped while Muscat is still riding on the crest of a wave of triumph that many say is destined to carry him on for at least another two years.

There’s also the fact to be considered that people who voted - and exhorted others to do so - for Muscat would feel pretty darn silly if they changed their mind now, a couple of short years into his first legislature.

I mean, who cares if he’s allowed many promises to slip, if meritocracy has become a hollow joke and accountability an even less funny one?

The environment and the protection thereof, a subject so close to the heart - and loud mouths - of many has gone the way of developmental expediency, traffic and public transport a perception that makes you shudder and the number of new projects the government, headed by the Trusted One, can be counted on the finger of one hand and consists in flogging our passports.

Everything else was the result of the previous government’s work; when it was negative it was their fault and when it was positive Muscat and his grinning bunch took the credit.

A more sobering view unfolds, if you are a smug Labour tweeter looking at the survey, when you take a look at the figures for Muscat’s band of brothers in Cabinet.

Their ratings hardly moved, some went up and some down, but, generally speaking, the impression you get is that Muscat is carrying the whole shooting match on his own back.

Which leads to a conclusion that might be worth considering: Muscat, the victorious and vanquishing leader, is bathed in the glow of general approval, strengthened by the easy ride he still gets from areas of the media and by the efforts of friends, old and new, and (former) foes who spin a gossamer web of slick events and public amusements by means of which he remains inoffensive and lovable, trusted if largely untested.

He is the Top Dog, who does little except scurry from foreign junket to foreign junket, intoning “Hallelujahs” when the more boring trips are cut short and his image remains inviolate.

His government colleagues, on the other hand, blunder about making dogs’ dinners of much of what they try to do and their trust ratings show it.

But, hey, it’s the season of goodwill to all men, so here’s to your having a great New Year and having had a great Christmas.

imbocca@gmail.com

http://www.timesofmalta.com/blogs

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