Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1113313
13 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 5 MAY 2019 NEWS promise box rather than articulating a narrative with which work- ing class people can identify. While he panders to the immi- gration concern, he does not fit the stereotype of far-right politicians. He surely does not harbour any doubts on Malta honouring international obli- gations with regards to asylum seekers. One may even argue that it was Muscat, by reveal- ing that Delia was among the lawyers filing a judicial protest against his aborted pushback in 2013, who is reminding the xenophobic constituency that Delia is not one of them. This simply confirms how toxic the debate on migration can get: Muscat may regret his pushback moment, but he is still willing to use his adver- sary's snowflake moment to tarnish his reputation as a mi- gration hawk. What came out clearly in the debate was the absence of a populist narrative to counter Muscat's own 'toxic' brand, one which addresses concerns on wages, cost of living and property prices – rather than pandering to sheer prejudice. Sure enough Delia was no pushover in the debate. He ac- tually performed better than expected. One reason may well be that Muscat thrives on the acrimonious confrontation of- fered by Delia's predecessor. Instead, he was faced by a calm adversary keen on speaking on daily issues rather than treat- ing his interlocutor as some sort of criminal. Still, Delia has not found a clear way to counter Muscat's ability to create a narrative based on self-interest, which makes his cosmopolitan model sound both patriotic and utili- tarian for the average voter. It remains difficult for a PN leader to articulate a discourse based on social justice, sim- ply because even Muscat's timid social policies have been more generous than those of the previous administrations, which had institutionalised precarious working conditions in government contracts. This is why Muscat could get away so easily when asked about low wages (despite Mal- ta being the only EU country to see a contraction in wages dur- ing the second half of 2018), and why it is so hard to rein- vent the PN as a popular party. The debate simply highlight- ed the absence of a cohesive counter-narrative to Muscat's vision of the future, which feeds more on aspiration than on social justice. But to be ef- fective, such a narrative must be equally populist, in under- standing people's aspiration for a better life. For that is exactly why Muscat keeps on winning in the populist game. Dreadful debut: Chris Fearne's 'wooden' performance during his 1 May speech. He coined the 'wealthy worker' soubriquet 'Unliveable' Malta needs environmental remedy – PN DAVID HUDSON NATIONALIST MP Jason Azzopardi has de- nounced the sheer scale of Malta's population growth, saying the island had become "unlive- able". "Malta is suffocated and congested. 600 per- sons per year are dying due to respiratory dis- eases and other illnesses related to the quality of air, which is the worst in Europe. We also have the worst recycling rate in Europe. This coun- try is becoming unliveable," Azzopardi said at a press conference held by the Nationalist Party. "The reason for this is that the socialist govern- ment has no plan in terms of the environment and does not have a concrete economic plan to tackle the increasing population," Azzopardi said. Azzopardi said that in 2013, minister José Her- rera signed a "secret deal" with Bulgaria costing Malta €200,000 per year, to allow the island to exceed caps on emissions. "What's Malta's population capacity?" he add- ed, arguing that the answer to this question was required in order for the government to have a strategy in place to deal with its labour influx. Azzopardi said the PN's concrete proposals in its electoral manifesto proposed a "remedy" to the government's lack of environmental fore- thought. PN candidate Michael Briguglio said the PN's proposals would reverse the environmental mis- management of Labour's administration. "The government recognised its own environmental deficit when the State of the Environment Re- port was published last year. Malta is failing to reach the EU targets in terms of the environ- ment, the only country in Europe to do so," Briguglio said. AD takes on Mosta project MATTHEW AGIUS ALTERNATTIVA Demokratika has once again called out land speculators, saying their "insatia- ble greed, aided and abetted by the PLPN duo, has led to overdevelopment and the destruc- tion of open spaces and fields all over Malta and Gozo," at a press conference on the outskirts of Mosta, near the Cumbo tower. The sprawling piece of agricultural land there that separates Mosta from the Durumblat Road in Attard, a 40,500sq.m tract in the vicinity of the historic Cumbo tower, which was included in development boundaries back in 2006, is tar- geted for a massive development project by pro- ponent Charles Azzopardi. "This is yet another area of land which in 2006, the government of the day had changed its sta- tus from ODZ to land inside the development scheme. The Labour Party had voted against the so-called 'rationalisation', while the PN, to the delight of speculators, had voted in favour of this destruction," Cacopardo said. "If this land is developed we will end up with a considerable number of empty properties, add- ing to stock of empty properties." Cacopardo has submitted an objection to the application, arguing that another identical ap- plication had already been rejected by the PA's Executive Council. "This is not the only area bearing the brunt of the 2006 decision," Ca- copardo said referring to an area along Triq Dun Mikiel Xerri in Attard. "AD invites the Labour Party, unless it changed its mind since its 2006 vote against 'rationalisation', to be consistent and now that it is in government, takes the nec- essary steps against rampant development and land speculation."