Late last year a group of Maltese left-wing activists and academics wrote a scathing open letter to the Prime Minister. There was not much beating about the bush regarding its content and the authors came straight to the point.

The principal lament of the writers, one of them a former Labour Party leader, was that the party had lost its political direction, jettisoning all forms of social conscience in favour of the tempting trappings of power.

This was a forceful letter thatI feel has been swept away with the current of the fast-moving pace of a media world that has increasingly commoditised news, information and opinion.

The open letter criticised Labour’s political direction and reflected the thoughts of a group of people exasperated by a party whose promises have not been translated into reality, now that it is in power.

Indeed the letter actually stated unreservedly that the Labour government exponents were using discourse and applying power politics diametrically opposed to Labour’s core fundamental values.

The reaction from the Labour elite was of deafening silence.

As we approach the third year of a Labour administration it would be pertinent to ask what does ‘new’ Labour actually represent?

Away from the glitzy promises so eloquently transmitted just 24 months ago, how has this party fared in government and what of Malta’s predicament at this moment in time?

Labour in opposition was a formidable opponent to the Nationalists in government. The strategy took no prisoners as Labour gnawed relentlessly at the underbelly of the PN administration.

Some of the omnipresent challenges were used by Labour unashamedly as excellent political footballs.

Twenty-four months into a PL administration the challenges in education and health, the social and economic conditions of a rising minority of underprivileged, and the cost of living, among other issues, persist unabatedly.

It is now painfully apparent that Labour’s roadmap for Malta was far sketchier than what many expected prior to the last general election. Some would argue that it never existed in the first place.

The only feather in Labour’s cap was its sale of Malta’s sole energy supplier

This government’s policy regarding the energy sector remains at best wishy-washy. The increasingly alarming sensation is that our Energy Minister is groping in the dark trying frantically to square a circle.

Similarly, the much-trumpeted transport ‘solution to beat all solutions’ has now turned into a veritable farce.

Malta is paying through its nose in subsidies for practically the same service, the contract for which we are yet to see.

In the economic sphere Labour has yet to come up with a coherent plan or policy for new inward foreign investment.

Once again the only feather in Labour’s cap was its sale of Malta’s sole energy supplier at a price and with conditions which government has decided may not be in the public interest to publish.

On the social front things look none the better. Among the many ‘social measures’ in this year’s budget was a hefty increase in the rent of social housing affecting low-income families. This was coupled with an increase in examination fees for students and their families and other cleverly camouflaged increases in taxes on day-to-day items of consumption.

In this area clearly the fuel price fiasco takes the proverbial biscuit. After years of banging on about fuel price hikes, today Malta proudly pays the highest fuel prices in real terms among the EU states.

As families and social partners fume at this surreal situation, our government refuses to come out with a plausible and clear-cut explanation to this unfair situation.

While Italians pay 89 cents a litre for petrol we are currently paying 138 cents for the same litre. I urge all readers to visit www.dieselupetrol.com to calculate the weekly bite into our pockets as prices persistently remain high with a plummeting oil price.

Is this Labour’s social conscience? Is this Labour’s political ideology? In the grander scale of things one would be forgiven to suspect that in order to sustain its electoral promise of reducing the water and electricity bills, government has had to resort to the crafty game of robbing Peter to pay Paul!

info@carolinegalea.com

Caroline Galea is a PN local councillor in Santa Lucija.