I'm Mandy, Fly Me

Do you think we should tell the Spanish that Peter Mandelson has turned up in their government? Or should we just let them find out? You have probably been wondering what Mandy does with himself nowadays. Well, now we know. He's become the Spanish government supremo for tourism (and industry and energy). You can't keep an ambitious politician down, even if ambition requires changing nationality and name. The minister claims to be José Manuel Soria from the Canary Islands. But we know better, don't we, Sr. Mandelson.

There is no end to the lookalikes in Spanish politics. No sooner has Rowan Atkinson given up the premiership or Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has failed to become premier than Richard E. Grant turns up as president of the Balearics and now Mandelson appears. It's alarming, to say the least, that he's been put in charge of the country's tourism and that he has opted for an estate agent to be his tourism right-hand woman. Don't be fooled by all that property law stuff or by the name. It's not I for Isabel, but I for Inmobiliaria Borrego. There again, Mandy knows all about the estate-agency game.

Having managed to weasel his way into the corridors of power in Madrid, what does Sr. Mandelson have to say for himself and for tourism? One thing he isn't saying is that IVA is going to be reduced for tourism businesses. But wasn't this what the new government was going to do? Nope. "This is not the moment," says Mandelson Soria. The delicate deficit situation means no cut to IVA. Presumably no one had noticed this delicate situation before the election.

Another thing he isn't saying is that there are going to be suitcase loads of government money being bundled into the holds of various airlines in return for their agreeing to fly into Spanish air space. "It isn't a good policy to be using public resources in order to pay tourists to come to Spain," he insists. And it wouldn't be a good use of public resources if that was what financial incentives to airlines actually meant. Though, when you think about it, the odd bribe to tourists might not be such a bad form of promotion.

It'll be all that time spent knocking around the European Commission and doing things by the book. Can't be giving out subsidies to airlines in this new era of Spanish public-administration probity. What would Brussels say? Whatever it might or might not say, Mandelson Soria has gone on to say that: "our country (note how he really has become Spanish) has sufficient attractions without there being additional incentives for tourism".

He's quite right of course. In fact, rather than paying tourists, they should pay instead. Like they are going to have to in Catalonia. Or are they? The minister isn't too pleased with the Catalans or with their tourist tax. Everyone has got to do it (tourism) the same way, his way, and the tax threatens to prejudice the "brand" that is Spain. So, he's going to homogenise what the different regions get up to. Soria Law, the Mandelson Mandate. "I'm Mandy, fly me to Spain, but not with the aid of any grants to Ryanair of the sort the Catalans reckon they're going to be making."

This is all rather interesting. The regions are going to have to fall into line with central policy. Sounds a bit familiar, or would do if you had been around in the 1960s, rallying around the glorious brand of Franco's "Spain". Hmm, so the talk about the PP's anti-regionalism has more to it than we might have thought.

The Catalans aren't going to take it lying down though. Oh no. The tourist has to pay the tax because they need the money to pay Ryanair and to pay Bernie Ecclestone. Seriously, they have said that the tax will go towards maintaining the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.

But if the regions really are going to have to follow the party line, what of the Balearics? Is Delgado going to be told to stop turning hotels into rock-concert venues? Will there really be condohotels or hotels turned into apartment blocks for sale? Well, what do you think? Of course there will be. Because that's where the Inmobiliaria Borrego comes into the equation. Selling Spain and its tourist resorts by the pound or the ruble or the renminbi or even the euro.

And if there happens to be the slight inconvenience of not being a native getting in the way of buying up the resorts, there's no problem. Anyone need a passport application?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.