In the space of a week, the Labour Party has officially switched from spin to spam. Nothing it says is being taken at face value any more. People have moved from the incredulous to the downright cynical.

In anything Joseph Muscat’s government announces, there is a catch, a crucial detail omitted, a hidden hand at play and, above all, an overwhelming and nauseating air of sleaze.

The Marsascala university spam, that public land swindle so far going terribly wrong, has wiped away any hope that Labour can be taken on its word.

Two years into government, with nothing to show but continued economic growth inherited from sound Nationalist policies, Labour statements and projects have become junk mail to be ignored.

The advice is there all over the Internet: “It is vital to protect yourself from spam. It is not just annoying but contains links to malicious software or fraudulent content that costs you money and time.”

That definition of spam is found on an Australian consumer guide, possibly written by a Maltese emigrant there who still remembers Labour.

Barely two days after barefacedly announcing a €115m American university project that would “create 400 jobs and host 4,000 students”, the Prime Minister found himself insisting that the project was “not a castle in the air”. That doesn’t tell much about his credibility but who can blame people for doubting, when they have heard enough of spectacular projects and memoranda of understanding with dictatorial countries that lead nowhere?

The university project itself may be a scam or even a spoof, but this second round of land rape at Marsascala is very real. It has nothing to do with the “acclaimed De Paul University” Muscat referred to. He name-dropped this US institution to impress his dwindling gullible voters but De Paul has since but washed its hands of this land-grab.

Any other prime minister, possibly even one in Azerbaijan, would have resigned after such public humiliation and ridicule.

Muscat is a successful salesman of someone else’s passports but he does not drive a hard bargain overseas like his predecessor Dom Mintoff.

For all Muscat’s boasting of great things to come, it turns out that the only reason that a Jordanian businessman will set up shop here and not elsewhere is because Muscat lured him with vast tracts of virgin property in Lorry Sant land – Marsascala. This is a real estate business deal.

Back in the Golden Years of Labour in the 1980s, that area was already earmarked for development, so much so that Sant’s cronies were already laying the ground work with a land-grab.

“Don’t worry, vote Lorry” was the famous slogan that hung off a banner across Paola’s main square, where Sant enjoyed widespread support, thanks to his charm and compassion for the needy and not corruption, of course.

But people did worry in 1987 and voted for the Nationalists, leaving those land-grabbers in Marsascala with pie in the face. Or so we thought, because Sant’s ghost is back to haunt us. The PN’s slogan leading to that crucial 1987 election was Is-sewwa jirbaħ żgur (Good shall prevail), and many of us were stupid enough to believe that.

This university spam on ODZ Marsascala land, incredibly identified by the planning authority itself, just goes to show that the fight for freedom and justice is never over and was not won for good in 1987.

It was not just mid-term blues as Muscat wants his party to believe. Labour no longer exists as a political ideology and the disintegration has started

Good will only prevail if you do not let your guard down.

It was a grave mistake by many who thought that Labour had been sanitised over the years. It just changed skin and now look at what we have in government.

PN leader Simon Busuttil has a terrible burden on his shoulders now. He is the only man who can stop this rot before it degenerates to 1980s levels.

This ransacking of the country by a Labour government, driven by greed, cronyism and shameless populism to keep it in power, must not be allowed to continue.

The Nationalist Party’s biggest and unforgivable mistake in office was to bequest upon Labour a huge public sector for it to abuse of. Had the PN worked for a leaner government, as ideologically it should have done, and created true autonomous public authorities and not simply a series of expensive and powerless smokescreens like the planning authority, then maybe we would not be where we are today under Labour.

We are fast going back to the 1980s and though this time around it is not violent, at least not yet, the air is oppressive and the government omnipresent and overbearing. Bringing this Labour government down will not be an easy task because it will fight back like a cornered rat, with no holds barred.

Muscat pulled the Giovanna Debono scandal card in the middle of the last election campaign, using whistleblower legislation for purely partisan purposes. Busuttil’s reaction was ruthless and admirable.

He got rid of Debono and in a way even of his general secretary. The move must have stunned Labour because it prompted that smooth-talking minister Owen Bonnici to try to taint Busuttil with the scandal.

In reality it is Bonnici who has to answer why a law he piloted to combat corruption has become a political tool that provides criminal immunity to abusers prepared to come forward to smear the PN.

This so-called Gozitan whistleblower, a building contractor who wanted his money, apparently also spoke to Busuttil some two years ago and may have even recorded him. Muscat implied so much last Sunday. He keeps great company our Prime Minister. He calls this fighting corruption, but it smacks of sleaze.

True, the short-term effect of Labour’s strategy was a swing in its favour in Gozo. It is a small consolation prize given Labour’s performance elsewhere. It was not just mid-term blues as Muscat wants his party to believe. Labour no longer exists as a political ideology and the disintegration has started.

Over the last week, Busuttil has shown mettle and if Muscat ever came down from his high horse, he’d be worried. But success has gone to his head, he believes his own spam and that’s all good news for those who want to see the back of him.

Busuttil said that in removing Debono he is changing the way politics is donein Malta.

That is not correct. He is simply doing politics the way it should be done. He has the intelligence, the leadership skills and the courage required to do the right thing. He just needs more support.

The time for moaning about those nasty old Nationalists is over. We are tasting the Labour alternative and it is sour. The older that Labour grows in government, the more abusive and dangerous it shall become.

It took 15 years to bring down the Mintoff regime because people procrastinated. This country cannot afford another 15 years of Labour that has simply picked up where it left off at Marsascala’s Żonqor Point, in Lorry Sant land.

The PN needs more outspoken people to come forward, people with values, who believe in human rights and dignity, who will stand up for the common good and most especially for the environment.

The PN needs people who can reach out to the conservative working class that feels abandoned by Labour and can find a natural home in the Nationalist Party.

Labour’s underbelly is ripe for the taking. There is a working class generation that still believes in family values, in what is good and not what is opportune, who want their children to succeed, to go to university and not to serve as chambermaids for some sham university full of Middle Eastern students built on Lorry Sant land.

The leadership in the PN is there in Busuttil. He can pull it through. The party just needs a few more heroes to join him to press that delete button.