There’s very little research going on. I was involved in policy development at one time, in a limited capacity, and the one thing I noticed was the paucity of data.

One specific example is student stipends. I was trying to answer the question of the return on investment: out of every euro spent on stipends, how much is returned to the economy in creation of wealth? This was in the context of science and R&D in the economy. I couldn’t find the data anywhere.

It’s hard to say how far the youth vote influences policy. There seem to be some peculiar contradictions. Environmental issues, for example, are completely absent from political debate. This wasn’t the case in the 1990s and very early 2000s, when the environment was very much the hot topic of the day. It coincided with the explosion in urban development, and the youth voice, such as it was back then (before social media) was very much in favour of the preservation of countryside. Urban development has kept exploding, but the issue has disappeared.

It may be related to the shifting upwards of that demographic bulge. The students and youth of the 1990s are today’s professionals and home-owners. You’re unlikely to campaign against urban development if you’re having a house built.

Thank you. More than period specific bulge I’d have thought in terms of sector of influence: when and where policy forecasting is in place as an ongoing area of research.

If you mean the ability to influence policy, I don’t have any data, so I don’t know where dynamic lies.

I’ve met with people who have been on the same bus with me when we went to Valletta for the national protest against corruption and knowing they are party members, I asked them point blank who they’re voting for tomorrow.

I was bewildered, to say the least, as they blindly support Delia for he is ‘fresh blood’ and ‘no one is perfect’ and that it’s about time that the Nationalist Party won again.

Trying to drive the point home to explain that corruption, committed by a ‘Nationalist’ is still corruption, was next to impossible.

The power of persuasion does not work here. These people, party members, want to win at all costs. Some of them don’t even know anything about the person they’re voting for.

This is how Delia will be elected, with the support of ignorant sheep.

I have always been adamant that voting is a civic duty, but I have lost all hope and for the first time and against my values and ideology, I will not vote come the next election, if the Nationalist Party is led by Delia.