Hemm bahar jaqsam bejniethom.
Mrs Gonzi dejjem zammet postha u ghamlet hafna gid minn wara l-kwinti, mentri din iz-zatat mohha biex tidher u tiddandan b’dak il-kruha ta’ lbies li tilbes.

My point exactly. Second derivatives are no way to win the election.

On Facebook, certain Taghna Lkoll comments are getting fewer and fewer ‘likes’ and not so many people are posting them anyway.

There is a subtle but tangible change happening, but whether it’s enough, I’m not sure.

Last I heard, he was importing supercars from Japan.

You didn’t feel it in your bones. You heard people talking and you saw the result of the 2004 EP elections.

And Eddie Fenech Adami stepped down, which in and of itself changed the nature of the Nationalist Party for which people had voted in 2003. They voted for Fenech Adami to be prime minister from 2003 to 2008, and after a year they found themselves with a different prime minister for whom they hadn’t voted. People don’t like that sort of thing. It upsets them. I remember being particularly upset myself.

The fundamental mistake Fenech Adami made with that move was in thinking that people had voted for the Nationalist Party. They hadn’t. They had voted for him.

By that stage, the electorate was already consciously voting for a prime minister rather than for this or that party in government. Had Fenech Adami stayed on until the end of that term, people wouldn’t have felt betrayed and that betrayal would not have turned into anger.

The prime ministerial family scenario works only because it has novelty value. We have had prime ministers with wives and children for the last 30-odd years, but never Labour. It’s not the wife and children in and of themselves which do it.

You probably don’t remember how desperate people felt in 1996 when Alfred Sant won the election. We felt it in our bones that Malta’s hope of EU membership had ended, and that Sant would be in power for the next 10 years at least. So much for our bones.

These things cannot be predicted. There are moments when you can feel things crystalise. But that’s about it.

All I can tell you is that whereas three years ago people were almost violently hostile towards me and really aggressively rude, now complete strangers come up to me in the street with words of admiration and encouragement that I sometimes find almost embarrassing.

And whereas before the general election and in its immediate aftermath people were triumphant and defiant in their praise of Joseph, Michelle and Labour (as people tend to be when there are victors to ally themselves with), now I hear nothing but talk about corruption.