A new approach

Often, not always, it serves to suspend belief in what others are telling you and to check things out for yourself.

ngrima@independent.com.mt

On Thursday, after two days of hearing how Simon Busuttil was weak in his Independence Day meeting on the Granaries, how the whole thing was a mess and badly managed, I was able to find the whole video of his speech and I saw it all, from beginning to end.

From the outset I have, as the Italians say, a small stone to remove from my shoe. Remember how they laughed in the weeks before the last election when they discovered that Joseph Muscat was using a transparent lectern operated by a pedal? Well, now Simon Busuttil is using it too.

At the beginning of the speech, the NET cameraman took a shot of him from the back, and there was Dr Busuttil surreptitiously moving his foot towards a pedal under the lectern. Other shots then showed a slender and transparent lectern to one side on which, presumably, the notes to remember were written. So if Dr Busuttil was shown many times looking and addressing to his right, he was in reality reading the notes on the lectern.

Dr Busuttil is no great shakes as a speaker, at least at such big public meetings. He is usually better in Parliament. His deputy, Beppe Fenech Adami, is a far better orator.

But what was important in Tuesday’s speech was not the rhetoric nor the lectern aid, but what he said. Which was a complete departure from his past speeches?

He did run through the whole list of government scandals – how could he not? – and his audience was quite prepared to hear him list them – you could feel the common emotion. He could not squeeze more out of them for he has said all that he has to say in their regard.

But what was new in Tuesday’s speech was his embracing a common cause with the lower sections of society – not a normal PN captive audience. He spoke of the plight of pensioners who cannot make ends meet on their pension. He spoke about people living in government lettings whose rents have been increased by this government of the working class, and made the important commitment to revert the rents to how they were before the latest hike.

He spoke of his meetings with so many PL voters and of their anger as they see themselves overtaken by friends of the trio at Castile.

This was impressive – it was as if one was hearing a speech by a disgruntled PL voter rather than by a PN leader.

Will this be enough come 2018? I have no access to the polls although I have now discovered that when I wrote a negative appreciation in July that was the time his popularity took a dip. Nor can one expect to see the trend reversed on the strength of just one speech. That speech must be followed up by many others, all making a common cause with the common man, the working man. The hold that Joseph Muscat has on the common man rests on the (rather dubious) claim of reduction in electricity and water rates and (more plausibly) on near zero unemployment.

There are many other areas in the lives of the common man and woman where concern exists and must be made public, from courses that do not lead to a job, to pills and medicine that are not free (this is different from medicine or pills that are provided free which were many times unavailable under the PN).

Making a common cause with the concerns of the common man is a new experience for the Nationalists. The leader’s new task is how to balance expressing these concerns with the more traditional ones of calling the government corrupt.

Yet another strand was that which highlighted the dangers to Malta’s security through the irresponsible granting of visas and residence permits. The PN leader just touched on this but he and his party must redouble their scrutiny on the new residents and voters, and keep harping on for a thorough examination of the medical visas scandal.

Does this mean a complete reversal of what I wrote back in July? Yes and no. Some, or many reservations I expressed back then, especially as regards a party leadership that closed in and did not open to the party base and to other strands in the country still stand, although there is now a new openness and talk about a coalition to counter Muscat’s Moviment.

But this change of emphasis, this appealing to the common man, is new in the context of party politics. Is it just window dressing that aims to break down support for Muscat by hard-core Labour supporters? What was first enunciated on Tuesday must now be made concrete and the party must appear credible in the eyes of those who did not vote PN and who always thought they would never vote PN in their lives.

Today’s PN is different to the one that lost the election but it is not yet all that different.