Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1321294
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 20 DECEMBER 2020 Raphael Vassallo OPINION Bernard Grech's missed opportunities IN a way, I suppose it's just as well that 'consistency' is not our strong point as nation. Because if we had to judge everyone using the exact same yardstick, every single time… well, I can think of no better way of continuing that sentence, than by quoting Shakespeare's Hamlet (written more than 400 years ago): "Use every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape whipping?" Who, indeed? Not Adrian De- lia, that's for sure. Consider, for instance, how often the former Opposition leader had to face resignation calls – emanating from within his own party – after each successive media poll sug- gesting that the Nationalist Party stood no chance at all of winning an election, for as long as Delia remained at its helm. As recently as last June (though I shall have to admit it does feel a lot longer ago) The Times re- ported that: "Nationalist MPs on Sunday met and urged Adrian Delia to consider resigning the party leadership following a dis- mal showing in a Times of Malta poll." And last February, the same Na- tionalist MPs had likewise bayed for Delia's blood after yet another disastrous survey performance: this time, in a MaltaToday poll. To quote from that news report: "The PN leader was facing pres- sure to resign after polling data showed the Nationalist Party has been unable to gain ground despite the political turmoil gov- ernment faced last December […] Party sources earlier told Malta- Today that a majority of MPs asked Delia to resign 'for the good of the party and the country'…" Fast-forward to the present, and… well, what do you know? Despite a change in leadership last October, our last two 'Trust Barometer' surveys still point in roughly the same direction. For even if Bernard Grech has undeniably fared better than Adrian Delia, in terms of his own popularity – almost doubling the latter's trust ratings, from 14% to 30% - the fact remains that the Nationalist Party still seems to have absolutely no chance of win- ning an election under Bernard Grech, either. As things stand, the percentage gap between Labour and the PN appears to be permanently stuck at around 16.7%... in other words, significantly higher than the ac- tual (as opposed to 'projected') distance between the two parties at the last election: which, as I re- call, stood at roughly 11%. From this perspective, our own editorial – published last week – may actually have been over-gen- erous towards Bernard Grech, by predicting that: "if nothing changes, Grech may not just 'fail to narrow the gap' (which rep- resents the most realistic of the PN's electoral targets, at the mo- ment); but he may even end up losing the next election with the same gap as Busuttil…" I stand to be corrected, of course (let's face it: numbers were never exactly my forte) but my own reading of our latest sur- vey actually suggests that the PN is likely to lose the next election by an even higher margin than three years ago: which was (and to date, remains) the biggest electoral drubbing ever received, by any local political party, since 1945. OK, at this point there are two ways this argument could be de- veloped: I could waste a lot of time asking pointless questions, such as: 'Why are there no calls for Bernard Grech's resignation, emanating from within his own party, after such damning poll results?" (or, if you prefer: "Why is the Nationalist Party not using the same yardstick to measure Bernard Grech's leadership qual- ities, as it did with Adrian Delia?") But like I said at the beginning: consistency has never been our strong point as a nation… and (for a host of reasons that I won't bother delving into) it would be just slightly unrealistic to expect any of it today. So instead, I'll ask the question that the Nationalist Party should really be asking itself – and did ask, all the time, under Adri- an Delia – when faced with the seemingly-unavoidable prospect of third, crushing defeat on the trot. Why is the PN clearly (and con- sistently) failing to ever climb out of the hole it managed to dig it- self into in 2017? Why is it stuck at precisely the same abysmal support levels… despite having changed leader, not once, but twice in the past three years? At the risk of oversimplifica- tion, I would say there is only one answer, really. And it is that – despite those leadership changes – the PN has not actually altered its own policies (or, even less, its rhetoric and/or general attitude) one tiny iota, since the publica- tion of the 2017 electoral mani- festo under Simon Busuttil. Again, there is no shortage of examples to support that claim: you can literally pick any issue at random – for instance: immi- gration; the environment; civil rights; corruption; the relation- ship between politics and 'big business', etc. etc. etc. – and you will find that nothing of sub- stance has really changed at all, under either Adrian Delia or Ber- nard Grech, since Busuttil's time. Right now, I don't have the space to delve into all those is- sues separately: so for the time being, I'll stick to just one. The environment (with a specific em- phasis on hunting and trapping): not, perhaps, because this one is- sue can realistically be described as the sole reason for the PN's failure to make any electoral pro- gress; but rather, because it is an issue that resonates overwhelm- ingly with younger voters… and - as our surveys also indicate quite clearly - it is this specific (and all-important) category that the PN seems consistently incapable of ever winning over. And this is not, itself, particular- ly surprising. Within days of win- ning the leadership election last October, Bernard Grech was spe- cifically asked to outline his own views on spring hunting (among other things) in a press interview. His answer? "It's been decided. There was a referendum. So I don't think it's an issue anymore. So it's yes." This was, incidentally, in the same week as the Labour gov- ernment attracted overwhelming criticism for its decision to hand over Il-Miżieb and L-Aħrax – Malta's largest woodland areas – to be managed, as a hunting re- serve, by the FKNK. Bernard Grech's response? "What I would like to see is shar- ing. If hunters want to use the area for their pastime, I have no