Last Wednesday the Broadcasting Authority upheld a complaint by the Nationalist Party which argued that the government publicity spots for the new power station were politically controversial and warranted a redress. The PN was given the right to produce its own version, which will be aired as 30-second slots on TVM.

There are many reasons why the ruling and prescribed remedy should make us spit on and curse the money we pay in tax.

Let’s assume that the Broadcasting Authority is right. Not much of an assumption really, because it is screamingly obvious that the power station publicity is to information what Dracula is to haematology. As the ruling very politely put it, it presents one side of a “politically controversial” topic.

That’s another way of saying that the publicity is so much shameless partisan politicking. Except it borrows the robes of government information, and was produced and paid for by government. Which means that government used our taxes to run an extended Labour Party campaign.

As part of his defence, the lawyer for PBS – because the target was the national broadcaster – argued that there was a “fine line” between information and propaganda. As far as legalese is concerned, he was probably right. In practical terms, however, it’s a matter of knowing it when you see it.

A publicity campaign that urges people to get their flu jab, or that informs them that the public library is running extended hours, is information. One that tells them that the new power station is an enlightened decision by which Konrad Mizzi will transform their lives, or that the budget is a bottomless bag of gifts, is propaganda. It is legitimate that the first should be paid for by taxpayers. That the second should be similarly funded is, or ought to be, unthinkable.

There is an unbearable nausea in having to sit through many minutes of brazen and triumphalist campaigning every time you turn on the telly

That said, the lawyer’s use of the fine-line argument was very apt indeed. That’s because it is precisely when information and propaganda become indistinguishable that the rules of democracy are put into question. I’m sure that the North Korean regime would warm up to notions of the fine line. It would also say that the mammoth posters that glorify the greatness of the people’s army are in fact a paragon of information.

There is an unbearable nausea in having to sit through many minutes of brazen and triumphalist campaigning every time you turn on the telly. I’m told that the publicity has even made it to cinemas. I last came across something of the sort in a cinema in Mumbai. India was at war with Pakistan over Kargil, and audiences were offered anti-Pakistan propaganda as a starter to the main Bollywood course.

Back to the case at hand, hawkish propaganda or mammoth posters it isn’t. Still, the ubiquitous spots, newspaper space and billboards add up to an elephant on no mean rampage.

It is also an expensive one. This kind of blanket publicity will be costing millions in taxpayer’s money. The brief of the Broadcasting Authority limits it to television and radio broadcasts, but there’s no reason to suppose that a publicity campaign that is partisan on television is less so in a newspaper. Good to know that a government that cannot find the money to accommodate the parents of sick children near a London hospital has no such problem when it comes to funding Labour campaigns.

That’s the easy bit. The part that’s harder to digest is that Labour have no monopoly on the blatant misuse of public money to fund partisan propaganda.

Obsessed as it is with ‘balance’ over all else, the Broadcasting Authority granted the Nationalist Party the right to partisan publicity of its own. Rather than try to stop a shameful abuse of public money and airtime, it simply sought to balance it with more of the same.

Nor did the PN contest the principle. Instead, the party seems happy enough to indulge in a spot of free campaigning of its own. There are at least two reasons why this is so.

First, because contesting the principle would mean doing without those blessed free 30-second slots. That’s too high a price to pay when all that’s at stake is the minor matter of government misuse of public funds.

Second, because this kind of partisan publicity was made staple fare by Nationalist governments. I remember writing a very similar column about five years ago, and I also remember that my argument had apparently whetted government’s appetite for an extended electoral campaign funded by the taxpayer. As far as I can tell, there has been no change in policy on this one.

This is an example of power of incumbency on steroids. The few 30-second television slots granted to the Nationalist Party can never compete with the deluge of partisan publicity enjoyed by the Labour government. Never mind, because the PN is not really contesting the power of incumbency. It just wants a piece of it while in opposition, the full arsenal when in government.

Meanwhile, citizens have the unique pleasure of paying money to sustain a generous porosity between government and party.

mafalzon@hotmail.com