The days of visiting party clubs week in, week out to deliver the “Sunday sermon” were over and as from yesterday the PN started conveying its message in a fresher format, the Opposition leader said.

In fact, political speeches were conspicuously absent on the PN radio station yesterday morning. Instead, Simon Busuttil opted to visit the closing session of the three-day conference organised by his party at the Cottonera Sports Complex.

Party faithful who usually rely on this medium to follow their leader, were left waiting in vain as Radio 101 broadcast an hour of uninterrupted music between 11am and noon.

Later in the afternoon Dr Busuttil tweeted that the time for “Sunday sermons by party leaders” had to stop and announced his decision to seek different formats for the Sunday morning political activity. Contacted by Times of Malta, a PN spokesman said the party felt it was time to adopt a new approach in conveying the message to the people.

Rather than rely on the same style, which had been present since the early 1980s, the party would explore more innovative ways to communicate, the spokesman said.

However, he remarked that the PN would not rule out adopting the traditional approach in terms of its clubs every now and then.

This move could be interpreted as the first in a series of changes coming straight from the leadership in response to the disappointing result in last month’s MEP election. PN sources said next on the list would be efforts to make the party media more credible.

The Prime Minister yesterday was interviewed on the Labour radio station. Questions sent to the Labour Party for a reaction to Dr Busuttil’s decisions were still unanswered at the time of writing.