While addressing a crowd of Nationalist Party supporters at Sliema, Simon Busuttil referred to a professional public opinion survey published on that same day in an English language newspaper.

Simon Busuttil must have just read the main headline of that survey: ‘53% think that corruption is rife’. He interpreted it as meaning that ‘this is the most corrupt government’. Such a perception is not surprising since Busuttil and his motley crew have been speaking of “corruption” almost every day for the last three years or so without bringing even a shred of proof.

But the leader of the Opposition kept two very important results of the survey away from his supporters. To the question: “Between Joseph Muscat and Simon Busuttil who do you trust the most to fight corruption?” the survey shows that Muscat is trusted by 30.4 per cent while Busuttil is trusted by 27.9 per cent.

Asked “Of the following issues, which do you consider the most important when voting: corruption, economy, your standard of living?”, 60.9 per cent of respondents mentioned their standard of living, 19.4 per cent the economy and only 16.3 per cent said corruption.

It must also be said that even when asked whether “under this government is there a lot of corruption, quite some corruption, a little corruption or no corruption”, 40 per cent think there is a lot of corruption, 12 per cent feel there is quite some corruption, 29 per cent that there is a little corruption and 11.7 per cent believe there is no corruption at all.

This means that 52.7 per cent do not believe there is a lot of corruption, contrary to the impression which Busuttil and his crew have been saying.

Still, the most important point of that survey remains, that Muscat is trusted more to fight corruption than Busuttil.

So, rather than gloat over that survey, Busuttil has reason to be very worried.