The week that was

Mabel confesses: she has no idea

“I have no idea.” As statements from politicians go, you couldn’t ask for a better one than this, and who better to deliver it than the Partido Popular gift who keeps on giving, Mabel At The Table Cabrer? Never normally lost for a word or several - calling the opposition Nazis, for instance - the PP parliamentary goatherd was for once reduced to four-word cluelessness (actually there are five words in both Spanish and Catalan). Yet earlier in the week, Mabel had been vocalising in shouty spokesperson mode when condemning the “crusade” being led by the opposition against her own crusader, the Dracula-caped one, battling corruption wherever it may lurk. Be amazed as José Ramón fights the fraudulent. Gasp as he despatches the deceitful and expels the embezzlers. But Mabel would have been sore afeared at the sight of Judge Dredd roaring towards the courts on his Harley steel horse. The judge who should be dreaded, the OAP oath taker José Castro had been hearing from an axe-grinder.
Javier Rodrigo de Santos, the newly saintly Rodrigo, released from the penance of his misuse of his Palma town hall credit card and rent boys, was twisting the knife. Beans were spilling from His Holiness Rod (dismissed as a “confessed and convicted offender” by another spokesperson, Miguel Ramis) and they amounted to a great deal more than a hill. A mountain was built, and Rodrigo was music to the ears of the judge and subsequently of the anti-corruption prosecutors. Construction businesses had benefited from having been given public works contracts in exchange for which they had been handing 3% commissions to the Jaume Matas-era PP.
It was these commissions that Mabel had no idea about. She could proudly proclaim that she was now part of a PP that was totally new and which had nothing to do with the old Matas model PP. In Bauzá’s new model PP army, things are different. Oh, by the way, Mabel had been the minister for public works under Matas.

José Ramón: I want to talk

The blood freshly dripping from the jugular of the revenge of Rodrigo, the vultures swooped. Biel Barceló of Més: Bauzá was “chained to the past” of the corruption of the PP. Fina Santiago, also Més: Rodrigo had confirmed the existence of a “mafia structure and generalised corruption within the PP”. For PSOE, Rodrigo’s evidence pointed to “systematic corruption” in the Matas government. The Caped Crusader retaliated by stating that his was a profile without corruption, an announcement that lacked a real sense of zap or pow, just as Bauzá the video did. What do you mean you haven’t seen it? José Ramón wants to talk to you, so long as it is in Castellano or Catalan. No mention of any trilingual dialogue in giving “sufficient reasons for you to trust us again”.
There were those who suggested that the talk-talk video showed signs of desperation. I prefer to think that it showed where linguistic preferences lay. By Friday, four days after having been posted, the Castellano version was beating the Catalan one by 370 views (3,385 versus 3,015). The combined total would, were they all to trust them again, fail to make much inroad into the lost support in the opinion polls, while of the 6,400 who had seen the video, there were probably those who agreed with axque1 who commented (under the Castellano version) that this was “a video as hypocritical as it is obscene, worthy of a mediocre politician ...”. Anyway, if you wish to, you can talk to the president: Email, joseramon@gestionbauza.com; Whatsapp, 610 176 291; Twitter, @JRBauza; Facebook, José Ramón Bauzá.

Jaume’s bandage bandana

Bauzá really can’t continue to wash his hands of the Matas era by playing the I-wasn’t-around-then defence and saying nothing about the financing of the PP’s HQ and other matters - he is the leader of the party after all. But he has accepted that “if it is true, then it is repulsive”. (Good use of the conditional, José Ramón.)
Nevertheless, there may be some sympathy for him in that the past is constantly being dredged up and some very dirty washing is being aired. Matas just simply won’t go away, and there he was a few days ago appearing by video link before the Son Espases parliamentary commission with his head swathed in a damn great bandage. What had happened? Had they been looking for the ex-president’s brain?
Whatever the surgical need for such headgear, Jaume declined to make a declaration to the commission. Well, he couldn’t hear, could he. Not with his ears wrapped under several metres of gauze.
With the charge list against him growing longer almost by the day, Jaume might do well to consider an offer which the anti-corruption prosecution boys are supposed to have made. Fess up to everything, hand over ten million euros, and get off light with four years, which would be less so long as he behaves himself while in choky.
It must be tempting, or would be if Jaume could lay his hands on ten million. Surely there must be a few old chums who could help him out with the odd million, or is he now Billy No Mates Matas?

It’s official: God exists

Back in the days of religious antiquity when doctrine was committed to parchment and nailed to the head of the nearest non-believer for all the faithful to witness, statements as to the existence of God were generally taken at their face value. Times have moved on somewhat since then, and so it was a little surprising that the BOE, the Official Bulletin of State, should have been moved to contain a declaration that God does indeed exist. God’s creative initiative, animals, humans etc. are all signs of this existence. This wasn’t really the state as such confirming God’s existence, as it comes from the Spanish Episcopal Conference which has designed the new curriculum for Catholic religious education. Nevertheless, it is part of the national government’s LOMCE (ley orgánica de mejora de la calidad educativa) which, while being complied with in the Balearics, does allow schools “maximum autonomy” in its development. So this raises a question. Will God exist in all of Majorca’s schools? The regional government, for its part, appears uncertain and is avoiding saying anything about existence. Anyway, next week we can probably expect a declaration regarding the Earth’s relationship to the Sun. Which revolves around which? All will be revealed.