Talk of the Nationalist Party replacing Adrian Delia with somebody else is all well and good, entrepreneur Ivan Bartolo believes, but what happens if and when that eventually happens? 

"Who would replace him? How many good people are we going to burn?" he asks in this #TimesTalk interview.

Mr Bartolo, a successful entrepreneur who was a casual election away from a parliamentary seat in the 2017 general election, admits that the decision to bring in a party leader from outside politics can now be considered a failed experiment. 

"You need to be politically savvy," he says, insisting he has no leadership aspirations of his own. 

"You cannot go from zero to hero," he says with a smile. 

With that in mind, Mr Bartolo sees two paths which the PN could head down. 

The first would see Dr Delia move on following an MEP election wipe-out, with the party entrusted to a caretaker leader tasked solely with restructuring it from the bottom up.

"Somebody like Louis Galea, Tonio Borg or Joe Borg," he suggests when prompted for names. "Someone who does not aspire to become the next prime minister". 

The second option - and one which is likely to rankle with a core group of PN voters who take issue with its current leadership - is to fall into line behind Dr Delia and redefine the party's goals. 

"The expectation should not be for Delia to win the election, it should be to organise and unite the party". 

That seems rather optimistic, given the level of acrimony between Dr Delia and some of his MPs. 

"That's why he needs time," Mr Bartolo says. "Maybe some of those MPs will choose not to recontest".

What is certainly not an option, he argues, is doing nothing. 

"What is the cost of not organising the party? We're like a hamster caught in a vicious circle. The party needs to reinvent itself. It is useless telling people the party's doors are open unless there is a plan". 

Watch the full #TimesTalk interview with Ivan Bartolo in the above video.