Whatever you say, never thank the previous lot

Still, ministers were able to ignore Podemos for sufficiently long periods of time and get down to ministerial business. And as a collective in July seven years ago, there was happy news to send them off on their annual hols with a skip in their step and their sun hats at a jaunty angle. Employment in July 2016 had risen by almost six per cent compared with 2015. There were over 533,000 people signed on for work with social security, an all-time high and just under 30,000 more than in 2015. Unemployment stood at 45,530, a year-on-year decrease of 8,877. Economic growth in the second quarter had been 4.4%, the highest in Spain.

Yes, the summer holidays would have been sweet for Francina Armengol as she headed off to the family summer home in Barcares and for tourism minister Biel Barceló as he prepared for two weeks of sustainable holidaymaking, bathed in the glory of having introduced the sustainable tourism tax at the start of July.

Things were good, they were unquestionably good. The economy was flourishing. Regardless of Podemos, Catalina Cladera’s financial strategy and Iago Negueruela’s employment plans were working. Boy were they working; there had never been so many people in work. However, and much as the government may have sought plaudits (and received them), there was something that the government was content to overlook.

Reviled he may have become, but José Ramón Bauzá as head of the Partido Popular government had actually got the Balearics back on track. He had admittedly achieved this by saddling the Balearics with vastly inflated debt (debt owed to the Spanish government), but he had brought about revival following the financial crisis and had overseen a tourism law that facilitated hefty investment, which not only meant jobs but also created a more modern and higher quality hotel stock.
Armengol and her government could never admit it but Bauzá had laid the groundwork for them. The economic situation was well on the up at the time of the 2015 election, while that investment - supported by legislation - was at least partially responsible for what we have today, an accommodation infrastructure fit for the 21st century.

One mentions Cladera’s strategy and Negueruela’s plans, but the euphoria of July 2016 owed precious little to these. They had inherited a positive scenario and not even Biel Barcelo’s tourist tax was destined to negate this. Tourist numbers leapt by over ten per cent in 2016 to a total of 15,371,922 - one very good reason why there were such buoyant employment figures.

Come forward seven years, and the summer holidays of Armengol and Negueruela are bittersweet. Ousted from government, they will otherwise have been poring over the July employment figures. “These are our figures,“ they may well be screaming from their summer terraces. From over 533,000 in 2016, there were 100,000 more signed on with social security - 635,357, a new all-time high, and up 4.7% compared with 2022. From 45,530 unemployed in 2016, there were more than 16,000 fewer - 29,178 and 16% lower than in 2022. A situation of technical full employment, the only clouds covering the figures were one which highlighted a deficiency of 80,000 qualified workers in the Balearics and another to do with labour abuse to get round the fact that temporary contract working has been vastly reduced.

One considers these figures and wonders how the PSOE coalition managed to lose the election. But lose they did and have handed the PP a gift horse. But as could have been anticipated, the new government isn’t entirely grateful and is thus willing to look the horse in the mouth. The new minister for business, employment and energy is Alejandro Sáenz. Asked whether full employment is a positive legacy, he responded by saying that he doesn’t like to talk about inheritance. He wants to look ahead but acknowledges that “variables” have created this inheritance that dare not speak its name - businesses, unions, a post-Covid bounce, oh and government. There is some grudging acknowledgement, but no more.

There again, you wouldn’t expect him to say something along the lines of “you know what, they did a bloody good job”, just as Armengol and others were never prepared to say that they were able to reap benefits from the Bauzá administration.

Whatever you say, never thank the previous lot.