When reports emerged in recent days questioning whether US Republican Presidential candidate John McCain is medically fit - given that he suffered from skin cancer several years ago and is no spring chicken at 72 - to run for office, he did not shy away from the subject or lambast the media. His reaction was to make public the 1,173 pages that are his medical records from 2000 to 2008. If anyone is wondering why Mr McCain did not go further back, it is because he had already released that information the last time he ran for the nomination. Eight years ago.
When The Sunday Times was forced to go to some lengths to reveal that Alfred Sant had a malignant tumour removed at the turn of this year, it was criticised by some MLP officials who argued, unconvincingly, that a party leader's health condition is a purely private affair. During the election campaign, the issue was not raised once. By anyone. Because in Malta it might be considered bad taste.
Yet the media, the public and the party were deluding themselves. It was an issue, and one we should have had the political maturity to tackle. The report commissioned by the Labour Party into its third consecutive electoral defeat, at least, admits that fact implicitly.
The salient contents of the report - revealed in yesterday's issue of The Times - also list a number of other factors that meant the MLP lost an election that seemed easier to win: among them were a disorganised campaign led exclusively by the leadership, rival cliques, Dr Sant's refusal to get off the stage in 2003 and a mood of antipathy among a significantly large enough number of voters.
The report points to specific failings during the campaign - lack of use of the internet, failure to react quickly enough to unfolding events, an inability to woo target voters - but as a rule it fails to point fingers at individuals.
There are, of course, incongruous exceptions: While it declines to name a "person in the leadership" who was overconfident about the party's prospects of winning, it singles out deputy leader Michael Falzon's 'unfavourable' decision to extend polling time by an hour on election day. Such an approach makes one question the motives of the report's authors. However, the most disappointing aspect of the report - aside from its overly generic recommendations - is that it fails to tell us anything we did not already know.
In nutshell, Labour lost the election because of division within its own ranks and poor political judgment on the part of the few that were running the party. This meant it took decisions like not revealing its leader's medical condition until it was too late, which made it appear secretive; announcing a reception class proposal during the campaign and then being uncertain over how to implement it, which made it look incompetent; and pressing ahead - against all sound advice - with a pledge to halve the fuel surcharge, which made it look stubborn and out of touch.
Healing the rifts (which has been made more difficult in the light of yesterday's joint statement by four of the leadership contenders), reacting positively to justified criticism, and devising sensible policies are the mammoth challenges ahead for the next Labour leader. He or she will have to convince voters that the MLP is healthy enough to run for office, and also produce the records to prove it.