Sleeping restlessly till August

The Prime Minister will not prune his team of ministers and parliamentary secretaries in springtime even though, as The Sunday Times' latest opinion poll forcefully suggests, the country wants a revamped administration. However widespread the view that there are too many sleepers with no claim to political beauty, tactics do not permit confirmation that, yes, there will soon be a reshuffle.

The main consideration is that things are too bad to make them worse. Discontent is not restricted to that identified and fanned by the opposition, whose role includes the pleasure of making the government's life as joyless as can be. Or to opinion poll revelations. It is spilling over from the cauldron in the governing party's own kitchen, though the Nationalist Party usually papers over its inner cracks in public.

The party and government minders are deploying all the spinning skills at their disposal to divert attention from that phenomenon and from the debacle they expect in the weekend's local councils election round. Spin is reflected in the frenzied way it is applied to four semi-ideas floated for discussion in a Labour Party document, published eight months ago, which rather ambitiously claims to lead to economic and social regeneration.

The PM, in the traditional manner of doing politics, has not left the spinning and weaving to his lieutenants alone. In addition to putting in his bit about the ideas, he continues to use thread to his needle with an insistent claim that the economy is doing well. Rather mysteriously he even claimed over the weekend that investment is accelerating because of the budget measures.

If economic analysts who give advice to the PM that translates into national policy truly believe that we are in a deeper quagmire than appears on the surface. The PM's private conclusions, though, are probably radically different to his stance for public consumption.

No one knows more directly than he, even before opinion polls bell a warning and local voters yell it out, to what extent his insistence that ministers and PSs must deliver - or else! - has not spurred laggards.

Rather the opposite, in fact. He must be wondering what he has done to deserve the lengthening string of political calamities, which has raised such a mood of disaffection with him personally that an indicated one in four of Il-Mument readers feel he is doing badly, according to The Sunday Times poll.

One thing he did was to start off on the wrong foot. He set off with the political endowment that goes to every new leader to add to his own qualities but immediately wasted part of that capital by not being bolder in his appointment. A leader who starts off like that becomes more and more hampered by his own shackles.

Though the PM will note prune and re-pot in the spring, his garden is unlikely to look the same before the summer is out. He and his tiny coterie of decision makers will find solace and make much of an another opinion sounding finding in The Sunday Times- that, though 60.4 per cent of those polled felt Lawrence Gonzi was doing badly or very badly, only 34.7 per cent thought Alfred Sant would make a better Prime Minister.

In private, however, the Nationalist leadership will be seething and sick with worry. With the anticipated local elections trouncing out of the way and its bumps and bruises belonging to yesterday, the PM is likely to plan to shuffle his pack around August, hoping for a keener wind for the government to sail into the second half of its term. That could coincide with Parliament being on vacation and anticipate top discussions for the 2006 budget. The finance team will be able to discuss with the reshaped ministerial and PSs group.

Ministers and PSs whose job may be on the line will try not to seem too concerned. Likewise, pretenders among the PSs and on the backbenches will do their best not to reveal burning ambition. There can be little doubt that it's there, along with the incumbents' tummy rumblings.

The PM would be planning his changes with an eye on the general election. Those who prioritise national performance will cast a critical eye on changes from the standpoint of administrative cost, efficiency and effectiveness.

Will a reshuffled team cost the country less - through fewer ministers and PSs? Will they be more efficient? Will the public administration, paid out of the people's pockets, not party coffers, be more effective? As Dr Gonzi ponders what is to be or not to be, these are the questions that will relentlessly test his decisions up to election day.