This is exactly the sort of thing that makes people cynical about politicians

If Joseph Muscat thinks now that Lawrence Gonzi deserves much kudos – and Muscat actually delivered that kudos himself today – for the Sicily-Malta interconnector, then he thought the exact same thing then, when he got his people to organise a gang of hecklers to chant SHAME ON YOU at Gonzi in front of the massed news cameras.

People expect politicians to believe what they say (which is not the same thing as saying what you believe) and they don’t excuse politicians from saying what they don’t believe, in this case the polar opposite of what they believe, on the basis that all’s fair in love and war.

When people are cynically manipulated by politicians in this manner, they become cynical about those politicians themselves.