Last Saturday’s referendum result caught everyone by surprise. It was unexpected by the media, by the political parties, lobby groups and the public.

A substantial element of unexpectedness was felt during the Prime Minister’s press conference after the result was announced. Such discomfort was expressed in the inability to explain how he is going to take up this new challenge, the stern ‘caution’ message to the media and, last but not least, the ultimatum to hunters.

Specifically on the latter, he forcefully declared “the last chance” for hunters to conduct their hobby in respect of the law. This can be interpreted with disappointment and regret; that such a decision had to come back to haunt his government.

The small margin in the result came mainly thanks to the Prime Minister when he had to play all his cards during the heavy local council election campaigning in order to get his core voters to cast their vote. He emphasised his voting intentions more than once in the last week of campaigning in order to motivate a good number of Labour’s disgruntled voters to cast their vote.

This turned out to be a very risky gamble: now he has to face 49.4 per cent of the electorate, many of whom would have been part of the 36,000 majority in the last general election.

That also explains the aggressiveness and the element of frustration expressed during the press conference that obviously caused grudges with the media representatives who had the right to campaign but, somehow and for some reason, the Prime Minister was not happy with it.

The Prime Minister now has to find the balance in his actions to appease both segments, as promised before the 2013 general election.