If Labour wants to learn its lesson well this time, it must look back before daring to look forward: very quickly to 2003 as an example of what not to do; and then it should cast an eye to the UK and the events that unfurled there in 1992.
The Conservative Party had been in government for 13 long years. The Prime Minister, John Major - who was yet to win a general election as party leader - had held the office for two years. His Cabinet faced allegations of sleaze and incompetence. Making matters worse, dark economic clouds were looming on the horizon.
Major's opponent, Neil Kinnock, had led the Labour Party for nine years. The closer the election got, the more the polls were predicting he would win. Unwisely, he led a triumphalistic rally a few days before polling day. In the meantime, Major was taking his case directly to the people. The result was close, but Labour lost.
Kinnock resigned, though churlishly blamed the media which backed the Conservative Party in spite of its faults. However, the truth was simply that him and his party were not seen as a viable alternative. Some commentators wrote-off Labour for good, saying it could never gain the floating section of the electorate. Yet in 1997, its new leader, 43-year-old Tony Blair, stormed into power with one of the biggest landslides in British electoral history. They have been there ever since.
The British Labour Party managed to achieve this through a mix of brains and, after the untimely death of Kinnock's immediate successor John Smith, a stroke of tragic fortune. In Blair they had a charismatic talisman and a leader prepared to restructure policies and personnel - even if it meant coming into conflict with sections of his own party - in order to put Labour where he believed it belonged.
This is the journey the Malta Labour Party must embark upon today. The leader, we know already, will change. It is important this time round that the party makes the right choice: someone who is dynamic, moderate in tone and, most important, someone who the thinking Nationalist Party voter would feel comfortable with. Top Labour officials, starting with the general secretary who ought to shoulder his share of the blame, should change too. Nothing else could herald the necessary new beginning.
A major policy review has to follow. The party must, finally, unreservedly embrace the concept of EU membership and convince the public it has done so, as well as building solid economic credentials that will reassure - rather than frighten - the business community. Acknowledging past mistakes will be the first step to achieving this.
But Lawrence Gonzi needs to learn lessons from the British 1992 experience too. Like Major's party, the PN's nose was blooded last week. There were good reasons for that, and Gonzi must not allow it to fall into the downward spiral that proved to be the undoing of the Conservatives, who went from the natural party of government to near-oblivion until recently.
The Gonzi government must continue doing what it has done well - stoking the economy - and eradicate what threatened this time round to bring it down: unpunished maladministration and a general sense of public injustice.
Last Sunday showed how quickly the unimaginable can become possible. There is a lesson there for everyone.