So there we have it. Having milked public discontent dry over electricity bills, the Labour Party (PL) promptly dropped your concerns like a hot potato.
Last Sunday we were told by Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat that, on second thoughts, he could not commit himself to lowering electricity tariffs if it voted into office.
Of course, not. But that revelation came less than a week after an election campaign dominated by the PL's propaganda over electricity tariffs and a mere five days after Labour's secretary general Jason Micallef committed his party to lower tariffs upon being returned to office.
Mr Micallef's guarantee was given during Bondiplus last week when he was reacting to my criticism that Labour had shamelessly cashed in on people's grievances on this issue when it knew that the European Parliament has no competence to deal with it.
In the event, Mr Micallef's "guarantee" did not last long. For less than a week later, his own boss contradicted him telling us that "I don't think that's what he meant to say" and that, instead, he was not in a position to commit himself to lower tariffs.
Oh!
Now let's rewind and go through this again.
Over the past several months the PL whipped up public anger over the hike in electricity tariffs to boost its popularity ahead of the European Parliament election. Never mind the hypocrisy of this stance coming as it does from the same party whose last stint in power ended abruptly precisely because of its mishandling of electricity tariffs when the price of oil was a mere $20 a barrel.
Instead, the PL kicked up a fuss and when the government finally, if belatedly, reacted to tumbling oil prices and lowered tariffs with effect from last April, the PL persisted, calling for tariffs to be lowered even further.
That the government mishandled this issue is a given. The Prime Minister admitted as much himself and so did the minister concerned. But with fuel prices almost hitting $150 a barrel last summer, there was hardly any question that the bills had to go up, substantially. If anything, it was the timing and the communication that were hopelessly wrong.
Then came the European Parliament campaign and, scenting victory, the PL stepped up its attack. Its first billboard yelled "shock!" over electricity bills and the second put it all down to a simple addition that gave "Gonzi" as the sum of all our ills.
Labour successfully managed to convince all and sundry that the government was mean and incompetent because it raised your bill, regardless of the fact that, ultimately, the bills had to reflect higher oil prices.
But, of course, it never told us how it would have done better, presumably because it has no real alternative. Yet, people following Labour's campaign would have been forgiven for thinking that, by voting Labour, their bills would have gone down. That was the catch, since MEPs have no power to do so.
The result? A whopping 35,000 vote majority in the European Parliament election and four out of six MEPs for Labour. But your bill is not one cent cheaper.
Barely had the votes been counted that a victorious Mr Micallef marched into Bondiplus to give us a solid guarantee that a future Labour government will lower electricity tariffs. Only to be contradicted a few days later by his own leader who finally dropped the mask. "... I'm not going to make a commitment for the next election before I have the matters in hand," he said with a straight face.
The opportunism beggars belief.
And there's more to it than that.
During the same interview, Dr Muscat referred to inefficiencies at Enemalta and to "agreements which don't make sense for Malta". He said vaguely that "the guarantee I will give is that consumers will not pay for the inefficiencies of the government and Enemalta and should not foot the bill of agreements which don't make sense for Malta".
Now it is an open secret that Enemalta's inefficiencies stem mainly from its overloaded payroll. Is Dr Muscat suggesting kicking Enemalta workers out to remove inefficiencies? Or didn't he mean to say that either?
As to "agreements which don't make sense for Malta", presumably he is now attacking the use of hedging agreements, which Labour defended up to some time ago. Labour's stance on hedging agreements has been swinging wildly from anti-hedging when we lose to pro-hedging when we win.
Heads he wins, tails you lose. How convenient!
The truth of the matter is that Labour will only tell you what you want to hear.
But that's not necessarily what it really means.
Still less what it would do.
Visit my blog on www.simon busuttil.eu.
Dr Busuttil is a Nationalist member of the European Parliament.