Alfred Sant's Labour Party is not the first or indeed the last party in opposition to promise a new beginning. But it is not the slogan that counts but the ability to put it into practice and to carry it through to the end.
Promising a new beginning would be more meaningful if Dr Sant were to apply it in the first place to his own party. It is his party that needs a new beginning most. Unless the MLP general conference goes into this stark fact at the very start of their first meeting today, the party will not go far in its attempt to get elected.
Labour's ills have been diagnosed countless times since it bowed out of government after losing a confidence vote in Parliament in 1998. The party has been generally found lacking in strong direction and in the formulation of coherent policies, which has cast serious doubt as to its ability to take charge of the country's administration again, at least at this stage.
Even though the MLP has managed to win over voters in three successive local council elections, it can hardly take that as a guarantee that it will be propelled to power come the next general election, whenever it is called. It is one thing for Dr Sant to promise a new beginning and quite another to convince the electorate that his party, with him as leader, deserves to be given charge of the administration.
Even his new trumpet call of dynamic realism has come too late for the electorate not to sniff in it that political opportunistic whiff associated with general elections, however much dynamic realism is essential in today's world. Indeed, had Dr Sant and his party thought of dynamic realism before, they would not have spent so many years on the opposition benches.
To begin with, the party would not have stuck to its guns against EU membership when the people voted for it in a referendum. In all probability the party would have won the subsequent general election had it shown, in time, the kind of dynamic realism it is embracing today.
The party has probably realised the folly of its habit of going against the grain and is now making sure nothing stands in the way in its bid to sway the majority in its favour. "Dynamic realism" has also made it change its mind over the plan for the country to adopt the euro at the beginning of next year, that is, if it qualifies to join the eurozone this spring. Which is all very well as, provided the EU gives Malta the green light, the way for the adoption of the euro will be smoother than it would have been had Labour opposed its introduction.
In his column in this newspaper yesterday, the Labour leader asked voters if for "the inept, self-serving ethos that now dominates public management under the stewardship of PM Lawrence Gonzi," they would prefer "an alternative team - Labour's team - which has experience, talent, ideas and new proposals regarding how to do things". Experience in opposition yes, but not in government.
Even so, an electorate would be prepared to give an opposition a chance to prove itself, as it did in 1996, but unless it is credible in whatever it says and gives a good account of itself, it is unlikely to give it that chance. To many, Labour has failed to give a good account of itself, both in its 22-month time in government and even more so in opposition.