The Prime Minister’s main concern of the day seems to be to shore up the Labour vote for the May 24 European Parliament elections. While that’s entirely forgivable given that he is also the Labour leader, I’m not sure last week’s events helped the cause all that much.

First there was the Wednesday press conference at which he solemnly announced a two cents’ reduction in the price of petrol and a couple of other titbits to do with gas and such. Joseph Muscat spent the days leading up to the occasion in messianic mode, talking about the “good news” to come. When it did, it turned out not to be worthy of a Prime Minister. It was, in fact, the kind of news Karmnu tal-grocer might brighten up his patrons’ morning with.

Muscat got both form and substance completely wrong. On the former, he now seriously risks becoming a self-parody. He would be well advised to develop some semblance of a sense of occasion. Really, did he expect a jubilant crowd of petrolheads outside Castille, complete with balloons and that local U2 franchise known as Winter Moods?

In terms of substance, the whole thing was a disaster. Muscat went on about how ‘families’ (what exactly was the matter with ‘people’?) would now be able to budget, and how we could all now go that extra mile in pursuit of happiness.

Muscat is not a stupid person. I don’t think he really believes that a pastizz or two’s worth of weekly savings on petrol is going to make a difference. Not when the streets are paved with boy racers in their second-hand Mercs and BMWs, and when a stop at the petrol station on Sunday morning means queuing up behind a line of people filling up cavernous jerrycans for the day’s boating. The price of petrol seems not to have affected us terribly much, in truth.

And even if it did, I would argue that cheaper fossil fuels convey the wrong message. It would be infinitely wiser to find ways of encouraging people to use them sparingly. The environmental and infrastructural costs may not be immediately visible but they’re there alright. Cheaper petrol is more about 1950s American highway than it is about 21st century European progressive politics.

Then there was the corner meeting in Cospicua, in which May Day was conspicuous by its absence. Instead the crowd had to make do with Lawrence Gray, Alfred Zammit and the usual inanities. I take that to mean that all is now well with workers, that things like precarious labour have been sorted out, and that there will be a big celebration to end all celebrations next year.

As if this weren’t insult enough to the Labour legacy, Muscat told his audience that they should be suldati tal-azzar (soldiers of steel) and make the trip down the polling station on May 24.

Muscat, of course, has a habit of ransacking history for his speeches. For a while he was fond of ‘is-sewwa jirbaħ żgur’ (“right will prevail”). That was obviously borrowed from Eddie Fenech Adami’s speeches of the 1980s. On one occasion – by some big coincidence around the time of release of The Iron Lady film – he recycled Thatcher’s ‘St Francis of Assisi’ speech. Shameless? Let’s call it post-modern.

Be that as it may, he really pushed his luck last Thursday. Suldati tal-azzar, and its partner id-dnub il-mejjet (mortal sin), occupy a special place in our collective memory. For Labourites of the non-switcher variety they also evoke strong passions.

For the older generations who actually remember the 1960s, the two phrases bring back painful recollections. Younger people have what one might call flashbulb memories of a traumatic set of events. Kept nourished by oral histories and personal anecdotes, these memories in turn feed into partisan allegiance (rather like Tal-Barrani and Raymond Caruana do for Nationalists).

Joseph Muscat would be well advised to develop some semblance of a sense of occasion

Suldati tal-azzar was coined by Dom Mintoff around 1962 to describe (and forge) the Labourite resistance to the moral bullying of the period. That included such gems as the threat of mortal sin for Labourites generally and full-scale interdiction for the inner circle.

Fifty years on, one might be tempted to raise an eyebrow to what sounds so improbable it is almost laughable. For many who lived through it, however, it must have been a nightmare. This was a time when newborns were whisked off to the font just in case they died unbaptised and ended up in limbo (now closed indefinitely) for eternity. Thus the well-deserved suldati tal-azzar.

It’s shameful of Muscat to banalise history, and the memories of those who made it, in such a way. To even suggest that there might be some similarity between the suldati tal-azzar who stood firm in the face of a direct attack on what they cherished the most, and the progressive types who can’t make up their minds whether to take time off their Saturday car wash, is ludicrous.

In any case, the enemy here is not the PN, or Archbishop Michael Gonzi. If Labourites have to be rabble-roused to overcome themselves and vote Labour, that means the enemy is Labour itself.

In Cospicua, Muscat managed a double whammy on his own party. He cheerled the demise of May Day and banalised the Labour legacy, in one fell swoop. I’m surprised (not really, but anyway) he wasn’t booed. Let’s put it down to Zammit’s riveting charisma. And the heat.

mafalzon@hotmail.com