There’s always someone who asks how you feel about the budget. This year, the answer doesn’t lie in what you think of the incentives and raises. What you really feel depends on how sharply you react to the Labour clubs’ banner: “We’ve rewarded the industriousness of workers.”

If your gut instinct is to retort, “Yeah, but not as much as you’ve rewarded the crooks in your ranks”, then the promised policies will have no effect. If you are in the majority, then Labour is in serious trouble, although not necessarily lost.

Call it the eye-roll test. Policies never actually win elections, just as corruption issues, alone, won’t bring down governments. What matters is whether voters think a ruling political party is still fit to govern. If people roll their eyes when the leader speaks, his time is running out.

Ideally, voting for a leader should be something to be proud of – as it was for those who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, Lawrence Gonzi in the same year and Joseph Muscat five years later.

Pride isn’t necessary for a routine win, though. What’s needed are reactions to leaders, which are usually instinctive and, once settled, very hard to move. People tend to prefer intuitive leaders, especially if they believe they share the same intuitions. The eye-roll is people’s way of dismissing a leader as out of touch.

Hence, why this week’s budget was all about signalling. It was less about the actual likely economic effect of the rise in the minimum wage, say, than about Robert Abela trying to convey that his instincts are “socialist”. He’s trying to win back some of the eye-rollers.

Likewise, we could argue about whether new investment in ST Microelectronics constitutes a “new economic niche”, when we’re talking about a long-established industry. But the real battle of persuasion is going on elsewhere. Does the investment shift the views of the various economic lobbies that are concerned about the future?

Their anxiety has two sources. One is that the economic strategy of the last decade needs to be repudiated and a new one adopted. The other is that Labour needs to be weaned off its business model for retaining power.

It is two models, economic and political, that need changing, not one. The cronyism is now a byword for maladministration and financial recklessness. It threatens the ability of government to engineer the necessary economic shift.

If the infrastructure continues to deteriorate and people feel less safe, no topped-up pension or benefit will make up for less dignity and a lower quality of life. And that will have a knock-on effect on commerce.

The fundamental issue is not whether Labour can reform its economic strategy. It can’t do that without reforming itself. Can it stop filling up the pigs’ trough without the government itself collapsing? Would it survive the resulting infighting and loss of support once the flow of attractive inducements dries up?

The art of democratic politics, let’s remember, is not just about getting people to vote for you. If they won’t vote for you, at least make it difficult for them to vote for your opponent- Ranier Fsadni

That’s why this budget isn’t really about the economic policies. It’s about political trust. The policies mean nothing if Abela can’t improve his credibility.

Last weekend’s polls were assumed to be bad for him. In 18 months, Labour has haemorrhaged much of its 2022 vote surplus. But there was a silver lining.

Labour still commands a lead that, before 2013, was considered the stuff of a romping victory. The PN in its heyday did not beat even Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici with a five-point margin.

Bernard Grech continues to trail Abela. In the 40-odd years that professional political polling has been conducted in Malta, no political party has won a general election when its leader was less trusted than his opponent.

The art of democratic politics, let’s remember, is not just about getting people to vote for you. If they won’t vote for you, at least make it difficult for them to vote for your opponent.

Grech occupies, of course, a thankless role. Labour’s control over the state media makes it difficult for him to be noticed – except when he slips up.

If he criticises, he’s called negative. If he offers a good idea, he risks the government stealing it. If he keeps detailed policies to himself, he’s accused of being vacuous.

If he does get into the nitty gritty, he’s accused of not relating to people’s desire to be swept away by moving visionary rhetoric. But if he gets radical, he’ll worry the people who want to re-stabilise the country.

When he tries to connect with voters across the aisle, he’s almost always accused of betraying the party’s core principles. But if he doesn’t, he’ll be accused of playing to the gallery. Even now, he’s accused of doing both.

All opposition leaders are in this quandary. The difficulties come with the job. Some leaders overcome them but the polls show – as clearly as they did when they indicated Adrian Delia could never win a general election – that Grech can’t overhaul Abela even when the latter’s former voters are abandoning him in droves.

Abela has some hope to cling to. He has a few politicians jumping ship and there is factional infighting – but so far it’s largely contained.

Some party activists are demoralised to the point of thinking that Labour would benefit from a spell in opposition. But the majority will still work for a fourth electoral victory.

And while Abela induces eye-rolls in some voters and despair or contempt in others, he faces an opponent who switches them off.

The only obstacle that remains is his own way of doing politics which increasingly looks to voters like a threat to the country’s economic stability.