If politics were glitz this government would clean-sweep all awards, winning more Oscars than Titanic ever did.

But there are those of us who care about more than gloss, perception and PR, who think that government should be rather more real than glitzy showmanship.

All governments and all entities are allowed to engage in a certain extent of spin. Even individuals do it. We are all culprits when it comes to chiselling somewhat our reputation or our perceived set of skills or knowledge. Even Gonzi’s PN administration, a monumental fiasco when it came to PR, indulged in some.

The operative word in the last sentence is “some”. Few governments are so addicted to spin that they have no grasp of reality.

Joseph Muscat was elected on the platform of being new—a new movement, new politics, new faces, new super-wands to solve all our ills. All was promised with supreme care of propriety. Meritocracy, transparency were the buzz words and the electorate—or quite a chunk of it—was mesmerised.

Let us not say that all that was delivered was hardly mesmerising but on one count Joseph Muscat and his now-hardly merry men are remaining true to their colours. They electioneered with glitz and so they are living.

No government could have gone through the Martin Galea débacle in the same sorry way they have. They have been trying so hard to seem like saviours that they keep changing their tune purely because they cannot face the embarrassing truth that the true saviour was someone they had suspended.

All this is now known and I realise it is a terribly old story which needs to be buried so that we can all move on and seem positive.

But has this been a lesson learnt by Joseph Muscat? Or is he and his advisers still indulging in more and more spin to save face?

The more you gloss over truth—or at least the major truths—the worse your position becomes. A tiny lie needs a bigger one to cover it up and so it goes on. The spiralling of lies, or half-truths or reduction of some facts, is frightening, even leading to force-feeding media houses with data-protection misdemeanours.

There was only one heroine in the Martin Galea saga and the government had better own up to this sooner rather later, although it is too late for that already. Time has passed and the spinners are now feeling good that the media has somehow reduced the flak but if lessons are to ever be learnt by the great big movement that now leads this country it is that spin finally will spin out of control. And that is when the country as a whole will suffer.

The more mud, dirt and fabrications are thrown into the scene the worse the whole confabulation becomes.
Long live spin, long live glitz.