Muscat proposed a night tariff in 2008, then mocked the suggestion as ludicrous in 2013, before returning to it now

The Labour Party’s general election campaign of 2013 had no basis in reality, policy or anything the party or its leader actually believed.

It was a matter of seizing every moment to mock, deride and heap manure on the government of the day – the out-going government – and dealing with the fall-out later.

In 2008, when he had just become leader of the Opposition, Muscat proposed a night tariff for electricity. When the Nationalist Party included night tariffs in its 2013 electoral programme, Muscat stoked up a frenzied chorus of mocking laughter. His people produced videos showing us all waking up at night to make our toast and do the ironing, while he had his audience in fits, poor things, by saying that ‘GonziPN’ would be handing out free alarm clocks so that we could wake up to do the laundry.

Muscat correctly assumed that everyone would have forgotten by then that he was the one who wanted night tariffs in the first place.

Now that he is safely in government, he has said that he is considering night tariffs. You will immediately deduce from this – unless you are the sort who lends cash to gangsters at the promise of 30% interest per month and actually believe you will get it back and the interest too – that Muscat has believed all along that night tariffs are a good idea. But he mocked and derided them as ridiculous when it suited him to do so.

That is the sort of person he is. Many will admire this behaviour as erroneously class it as pragmatic. It isn’t. It is fundamentally deceitful and the lying manipulation itself shows great contempt for the electorate.