WAR OF WORDS OVER STRIP CLUB

Spokesperson for the regional right wing PP party, Miquel Ramis, on behalf of the government, apologised again for the “unfortunate mistake” made by the former head of tourism promotion, Juan Carlos Alía, when he included receipts from a Moscow strip club in his expenses.

He defended the government's handling of the scandal, saying that Alia could not have acted any quicker. His resignation was immediate and Tourism Minister Joan Flaquer has been quick to agree to providing parliament with a full explantion.

Although it does not look likely until after the summer recess.
However, he fired a broadside at the socialist party, which repeated its calls for resignations and a full investigation yesterday, saying “remember, the socialists were voted out of government for corruption.” “The PSOE can not start lecturing people about political ethics and how to manage public money,” he said.
He urged the socialist party's secretary general, Diego López Garrido, to be “a little more careful and sensible.” “It has been proved that the PSOE made some seriously bad investments. The Balearics government has made an honest mistake which it has dealt with,” he said.

The conservative party spokesperson stood by the government's decision not to name names and reveal who accompanied Alia to the top Moscow strip club. “Obviously, the government can't be expected to reveal information about what people do in their time off or their private lives.” Nevertheless, he did question the decision of those who decided to go to the club “whoever they may be” and admitted that all the secrecy surrounding the affair “could have damaging consequences.”

“Everybody has a good idea as to what happened, it has not been denied” say socialists

THE secretary general of the parliamentary Socialist group, Diego López Garrido, accused the Partido Popular yesterday over “double standards.” Garrido was in Palma to address a regional meeting of the PSOE socialist party and said that, over the Rasputin case, “the PP has decided to look the other way and stay silent. When everybody has a very good idea as to what happened and it has not been denied by the Balearic government.” He said yesterday that the socialist party can not understand how a party “with such high morals, opposed to homosexual marriages and abortion, does not say anything, just looks the other way. “The Balearic government has given the impression that it is a rather disreputable club,” he said.
Garrido stressed that the key to this scandal, is not so much the visit to the Rasputin strip club, but that someone tried to pay for it with public funds.

Alfonso Perales, the PSOE party's secretary general for regional government, also in Palma for yesterday's meeting, called on leader of the PP, Mariano Rajoy to call on his Balearic political leaders to give a full explanation. “What is most concerning is not that seven members of the Balearic government should apparently go to such a club and pay for it with public funds, but the way in which the PP has responded to the scandal.” “Jaume Matas talks about it as though it was just a bit of ‘bad luck', that goes to show just how important Matas really thinks this is,” Perales said.