Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1529157
8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 10 NOVEMBER 2024 ANALYSIS Barbs from the budget: Abela Both Bernard Grech and Robert Abela delivered brutal blows to each other in their budget speeches, until the latter gained the upper hand, but then also overdid it. James Debono ref lects on the brutalisation of political discourse and its consequences FACED with a budget that left more disposable income in most people's pockets, Nationalist Par- ty leader Bernard Grech tried his best to capitalise on the erosion of Robert Abela's popularity among Labour voters. Even in a delivery that was scattered and which even failed to convey a co- herent message of change, the Opposition leader captured the public mood with a few jabs at a fa- tigued government "with- out head or tail", prone to U-turns, and a Prime Minister "secluded in an ivory tower without doors and windows". Grech cleverly pitted Robert Abela against his own ministers, including the finance minister Clyde Caruana. "The minister for fi- nance expressed his as- tonishment that in the US and China, they already have driverless taxis. I do not know if this was a dig aimed at the one sitting next to you. Because what we have today is a government without a driver, as you yourself suggested in an interview with MaltaTo- day," Grech noted. Grech did not spare Ab- ela from harsh judgement, essentially describing him as a liar ("allergic to the truth"), a "second-hand" prime minister, a copy of his original "arrogant self", and someone in- volved in "a political net- work which generates and hides corruption." Clearly, the main thrust of Grech's speech was to remind his audience that Abela, who is losing au- thority in his party, can no longer be trusted to lead the country. Sitting next to his former internal rival, Adrian De- lia, Grech lashed out at a PM who has "lost control" over a "fatigued" govern- ment that has lost its co- hesion. And while Grech pushed too far – quoting unrelat- ed statistics to paint a pic- ture of doom and gloom – his attack on a govern- ment which remains clue- less on how to address problems of traffic and over-development, reso- nated with viewers expe- riencing a deterioration in their quality of life. Abela's counter-attack A day later, Robert Abela relished the opportunity to lash out at Grech. His most effective ap- proach was to attack Grech's incompetence and lack of preparedness for government, tapping into opinion polls show- ing that a majority do not trust Grech to lead the country. He hammered this point with a fatal blow, craftily referring to a leaked draft of an incomplete pre- budget document from the PN, in which insiders kept asking, "where's the beef?" While slamming past Nationalist governments