It is hard to know which of the two political leaders was more aggravating at the recent EY conference: Opposition leader Simon Busuttil for trying to teach his erudite audience how to suck eggs, or Prime Minister Joseph Muscat for giving a soapbox speech just minutes after hearing that investors were increasingly concerned about Malta’s stability.

The stability and transparency of Malta’s political, legal and regulatory environment fell by a shocking 15 percentage points, from 85 per cent to 70 per cent, in just one year.

Perhaps what is even more shocking is that there were so many scandals which could have affected this vote of less confidence, from the Panama Papers to Gaffarena’s property deal.

EY’s country managing partner Ronald Attard could not have spelled it out any more clearly in his speech at the conference: “On the negative side, the stability of our political and legal environment has taken a knock. While in comparison with other countries Malta still scores highly on these benchmarks, this dip cannot be ignored. For an island with no natural resources and whose future depends only on its people, its geographic location and EU membership, this cannot be ignored.”

Dr Muscat gave an uplifting speech, ticking off a list of undeniable achievements since taking power, from the doubling of the economic growth rate to a 10 per cent increase in economic sentiment. He said that prior to the election, unemployment and government debt were rising, while investment was falling – all trends that had been reversed with record levels of jobs being created, falling deficits and three times as many applications to Malta Enterprise as in the previous three years. He pointed out that whereas at the rate under the Nationalist government, it would have taken 40 years for Malta to catch up with the EU average, but that it would now only take 10.

However, his only nod to the other realities in the island was to admit that there was “an infrastructural deficit”. A mass meeting speech somehow does not work as well when addressed to well over 500 of the movers and shakers on the island, who know full well what the real cost to Malta will be of allowing its reputation to slide into the Panama Canal.

On the other hand, Dr Busuttil made a tepid speech better suited to a Sunday morning party club, delivered in a mind-numbing monotone, word by word as though his audience might not otherwise understand the big words he was using. He managed to complain about a number of things which were clearly a legacy from the PN government, like the public debt and poor infrastructure (decisions like building a breakwater bridge to nowhere instead of a new junction somewhere or other). He called for cheaper electricity tariffs, when it was the PL government that has already lowered them, and for Air Malta to be protected, when it was the PN government which allowed it to become bankrupt in the first place.

His final point redeemed a speech that would otherwise have been utterly forgettable: he called for the government to acknowledge the fact that reputational risk damages the country’s future. His parting shot? “Sort this out before going into the EU presidency” reminding us all that we cannot bury our heads in the sand, hoping that it will all go away.

If Joseph Muscat is Malta’s Trump – believing that enough bluster can hoodwink his listeners – then Simon Busuttil is our Hillary Clinton, with all the right credentials and an inexplicable inability to resonate with voters on the other side.