In politics, optics are everything. Your critics might wait to slam you for your actions as long as you look good doing it. For this reason alone, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif is fast-ticking all feel-good boxes. From breaking bread with specially-abled children to opening the prime minister’s house to Pakistan’s youngest recognised Youtube vlogger to now taking a commercial flight for his first-ever international visit since the election, there is a lot that is happening, which would have created a social media frenzy had it been under someone else’s watch. Now, these pages, by no means whatsoever, wish for their readers to take their eye off the ball and get overwhelmingly consumed by these fleeting instances. However, a sitting prime minister finally realising the need to set an example does call for some cautious celebrations. Despite announcing an austerity drive, Imran Khan used private planes for state visits except for one to the US in 2019. Mr Sharif, himself seems to have come to this illuminating epiphany only recently because he, too, had earned a notoriety for spending upwards of Rs 1.3 billion on several foreign trips during his last stint as Pakistan’s prime minister. While it is hoped that this preference for living within a country’s means will last beyond news cycles, the premier has more pressing matters to attend to. The approval accorded by his finance minister to honorariums of four salaries to officers working in the PM office has widely received condemnation as a good old rub of salt into the wounds of masses enduring a 27 per cent hike in prices on top of skyrocketing utilities on a shoestring budget. That there’s swirling chatter of a “reward” programme for high-performing bureaucrats stands contrary to Mr Sharif’s emphasis on cutting expenses. If offering a single cup of tea to guests in his office pains him because it has been bought with borrowed money, what would his conscience say about the heart-wrenching shrieks of the common man witnessing glaring hypocrisy? There’s only so much that hollow words can achieve! *