I pity Lawrence Gonzi. He must be losing a lot of sleep these days because of Joseph Muscat and his electoral promises. Just because the PN has been unable to reduce utility bills, for instance, Dr Gonzi thinks no one else can.

Gonzi should really desist from speaking about “populist” policies. What does he think his tax-cut promise before the 2008 election, which he failed to keep, was?

The thing is, the PN is a spendthrift government. Just cutting the waste will enable a Labour government to deliver more with less money.

The waste has been enormous.

For instance, the PN government paid for an oncology facility which was not delivered by the contractor, and now the Government is building one itself, and paying for it again.

An architect has been awarded €1 million for designs for the facility, at a different site, which were scrapped. So were designs for a blood transfusion centre. How many millions of taxpayer euros were thrown down the drain in just these three plans?

Gonzi, and The Times too, have been asking for details of Labour’s plans for months, if not years. The Times has, at least by the looks of it, apparently accepted Dr Muscat’s explanation that he will lay out his plans when the PN does the same. Dr Gonzi has not, however.

While his acolyte, Simon Busuttil, refused to divulge details of the PN’s plans for the coming election, Dr Gonzi still asks Labour to reveal its own plans.

Gonzi should have the decency to accept Dr Muscat’s explanation. With his Government having invested our tax money in a disgracefully polluting power plant, Dr Gonzi should not complain about coal-burning, if that is what Labour has in mind.

There are ways today of making coal burn cleanly. But his Government just ignored the Sargas plant proposal and we now have the Delimara monster which operates on heavy fuel oil. Now Dr Gonzi says the water and electricity bills could be cut overnight if we had the Sargas plant.

All those who have been straining to pay utility bills, and all those who have had power cut off because they could not pay those bills, should remember Gonzi’s heartless vote to increase the price of energy.