Last Tuesday’s Times Talk was something of a journalistic scoop. It told us what we already knew, but it also told us that what we knew was not necessarily true.
Simon Busuttil is in a very difficult position, for three reasons. First, a good Leader of the Opposition is expected to do more than just oppose. He must also propose alternative models of government.
The problem in Busuttil’s case is that he cannot plausibly present himself as an alternative, simply because the possibility of a Nationalist government headed by him, or by anyone else for that matter, is too remote at present.
So when, for example, he was asked if he would retain the citizenship scheme as Prime Minister, the answer was so unlikely to be of any consequence that it sounded almost laughable.
One may as well ask me what I would do if I were the bishop. Realistically, then, Busuttil can only oppose, and that exposes him to charges of ‘negattività – a barb the Prime Minister has, annoyingly but very effectively, perfected to a fine art.
The second reason why Busuttil is in a weak position has to do with the millions in Swiss bank accounts and the other sleaze we’ve heard so much about of late.
There is a sense that Busuttil is standing on the shoulders of crooks, and that the Nationalists got what they deserved. It’s very hard to be convincing when people think that about you.
The third reason is the most complicated. Labour’s landslide majority in 2013 was down mainly to the fact that many people were fed up of the Nationalists. Surprise surprise, one might say, except I mean just that.
I think that a good chunk of switchers didn’t really want a change of government. Nor did they actually believe Joseph Muscat would usher in a new age of meritocracy and openness. The reason why they voted Labour was simply that they had had enough of the Nationalists.
I personally know quite a few people who voted Nationalist in 2008 and Labour in 2013. Tellingly, the one thing they invariably mention is ‘arroganza’ (arrogance).
The Renzo Piano project served as a monumental symbol of that perceived arrogance because it showed a Prime Minister who rode roughshod over legions of objectors. Thank heavens he did.
But heaven also knows he paid a very high price for it.
The City Gate project helped crystallise the sense that the Nationalist government had overstayed the flimsy welcome given it in 2008. The word (arroganza) was made stone-and-mortar, so to say.
The significance of last Tuesday’s Times Talk is that it was the official and colourful end of his [Muscat’s] honeymoon
That’s part of the story. The switchers also included the sectorial interests cultivated so shrewdly (and legitimately) by Muscat.
The best example is probably that of the LGBT lobby. In that case, and definitely for the better, the Labour government has lived up to most of its many promises.
All of which leaves Busuttil in an unenviable situation. I doubt matters like Café Premier, Azerbaijan and Cyrus Engerer’s salary will help his cause terribly much.
That’s because many of the people who voted Labour had no illusions in that direction. What matters to them is that the bumbling has a new, and for the time being acceptable, face. ‘GonziPN’ was arrogant, Muscat just assertive.
That also means that tu quoque (you, too) missives from Labour will seem reasonable for some time yet.
Never mind the logical fallacy, the drift is that Labour can do the same things the Nationalists did and get away with it, simply because they are not the Nationalists.
So far not much of a scoop, then. For a while it seemed that Tuesday’s Times Talk would be more of the same – in a nutshell, Busuttil struggling to be taken seriously and Muscat having all the fun. And I do mean that. At one point he even mockingly offered to make Busuttil his spokesman (‘nagħmlek spokesperson tiegħi’). Arrogance? No, just sardonic wit.
And then he lost it. Thing is, Busuttil never said anything about Muscat himself taking bribes.
He used the more generic first-person plural aħna (we), which normally calls for a rebuttal along the same lines. Instead, Muscat chose to personalise it and to ask Busuttil if he was saying that he, the Prime Minister, took bribes.
Now that was the mother of all rhetorical questions. The staple answer expected of Busuttil was that he did not have anyone in particular, and certainly not Muscat, in mind. Busuttil would effectively be saying that he thought the Prime Minister was personally incorruptible.
Except he did nothing of the sort. Instead he said “bilfors hux” (‘looks like it’), at which the Prime Minister straightened his jacket and went ballistic.
His “you cannot be serious” tirade reminded me very much of John McEnroe at Wimbledon in 1981.
On that occasion, among others, McEnroe came across as a very great tennis player and a very vulnerable human being.
The point is not whether or not the Prime Minister took bribes. (I for one don’t think so.) Rather, the exchange spotlit a side of his which we hadn’t seen too many times before.
Muscat is the first ever Labour leader who is good on television. He is able to keep up a flow of feel-good language, and to do so convincingly. I cannot remember a single occasion when I went away thinking he had fudged it. Until Tuesday, that is.
Busuttil’s unpredictable answer (“looks like it”) interrupted that flow, with profound results.
For the first time, I think, Muscat came across as someone who could be both shaken and stirred. He also had no solid answer whatsover to Busuttil’s prodding.
I doubt Labour will go on to perform poorly in the local council elections. Nor do I imagine that Muscat will go on to lose the general election in 2018.
The significance of last Tuesday’s Times Talk is that it was the official and colourful end of his honeymoon.
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