Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1178700
maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 23 OCTOBER 2019 7 NEWS surplus and every day life: "The govern- ment keeps saying that poverty is not on the rise. Tell that to the 90,000 people at the edge of poverty and hardship. Where is the surplus? Feed them your surplus, Prime Minister," Delia said. Even when addressing corruption, he was able to give it a social twist; "If the government didn't grant €50 million to Vitals Global Healthcare to manage our hospitals, we would have had enough to build housing units for all those 4,000 people." The main innovations in Delia's speech was a greater emphasis on social issues like housing and linking the en- vironment to air quality in an approach reminiscent to Muscat's before 2013. He has also scored points by exploit- ing the own gaol by some government MPs in shooting down the opposition's "climate emergency" bill probably due to partisan antipathy towards its pro- ponent. The cons: A broken record with very few compelling ideas Delia's speech was essentially a repeti- tion of the themes he addressed before MEP elections, which he still lost heav- ily. When lashing out at the govern- ment's economic model he sounded like a broken record. At best his speech may have been ef- fective in galvanising his vote base and meant to give this cohort a sense of pur- pose ticking the migration box for more conservative elements and the reputa- tion and environment box for more lib- eral elements. He was also careful to instil a sense of nostalgia in past PN governments when according to Delia the country's reputa- tion was intact, probably meant to heal the internal wounds. In attacking the government's eco- nomic model he was also very selective. While he criticised the government's environmental record, he never men- tioned over development in our towns and cities, possibly not to irritate the construction lobby. And despite his strong words on cli- mate change, he fell short on commit- ting the opposition to support an early cut off date for petrol and diesel fuelled vehicles. While he lashed at foreigners he never once criticised the dependence on the construction industry. In short it is easier to blame the foreigner than those who are actually benefitting from cheap labour and high rents. For while Delia rebuts the PM's claim that "foreigners are coming because the economy is growing" insisting that the "economy is growing because of foreigners and not because they are attracted here by some new project", Delia ignores the fact that Malta has become one big construction project which depends on cheap labour. And while referring to growing social inequalities; referring to "towers for the rich and garages for the poor", he fell short of addressing low wages through concrete measures like raising the mini- mum wage and introducing a differ- ent COLA mechanism for low income groups as suggested by social justice ac- tivists. Neither did he appeal to the middle class cohort, which was the least to ben- efit from a budget, which imposed no extra taxes but gave little respite to cat- egories, which are seeing any improve- ment in their purchasing power despite economic growth. In short Delia came up with no great idea to address inequalities and wage stagnation. His vision on tackling social inequali- ties remains hazy and contradictory with his single proposal to address the working class cohort, namely to reduce tax on overtime being partly included in this budget. Overall assessment - No game changer At best Delia's speech can be seen as a mid term attempt to galvanise the core vote and solidify his leadership in the party, being continuously applauded by his MPs including critics like Jason Azzopardi. Delia also manages to thread across the ideological spectrum pander- ing to both left and right populism, with- out proposing anything which irks elites. It fell short in conveying a compelling vision of what he would do as Prime Minister but confirmed Delia's strength as a communicator, something which so far has not translated in to votes for his party. hitting but predictable Foreigners 29 Environment and Clean Air 14 Reputation 13 Housing/Rent 12 Financial Services and Banks 11 Climate Change 10 Passports 10 Poverty 8 Low wages 5 Meritocracy 4 Precariousness 4 Population 4 Key words Approximate number of times mentioned Adrian Delia: "The government keeps saying that poverty is not on the rise. Tell that to the 90,000 people at the edge of poverty and hardship"