He Killed Bambi: Carlos Delgado's resignation

So, farewell, Carlos, we shall miss your entertainment factor. We say goodbye to you, slayer of Bambi. You gave us a pantomime last year - "Cinderella And The Magic Orbs" - when as Prince Charming you told Cinderella that your hat was made from magic sea-grass orbs. Cinderella thought they were a deer's testicles. Silly girl. We say goodbye also to your finding a nice little job for your lady of Lourdes at your ministry (46,000 euros a year). What a pity you had to withdraw the job offer. She was so well qualified after all, your girlfriend, now Mrs. Delgado. We wonder what Lourdes made of the magic sea-orbs and how the photo of them came to be in the press. Did she speak to your former wife? We bid farewell also to your comparing the Guardia Civil investigators of alleged irregularities at Radio Calvia when you were mayor to a fascist, whoring, heavy-drinking, Atletico Madrid-supporting fictional comic detective. Is it true you had offered to resign at the end of June? Was that not when you were making this comparison?

We wish you safe journey also knowing that you gave the hoteliers all that they could have wished for, that you did nothing to help the non-hotel sector or the owners of private apartments for holiday rental, that you could only run to a tourism promotion budget of 2.7 million euros a year, that you turned the Balearics exhibition stand in Berlin into a laughing-stock, that you didn't concentrate only on tourism, that you were the power behind anti-Catalan policy, behind trilingual teaching policy, behind slagging off mayors who disagreed with this policy, behind getting nice Rafael Bosch removed as education minister. Or maybe some of this should only be allegedly.

Perhaps you don't deserve only opprobrium. There is so little money, and that tourism promotion budget had previously been wasted on the stupid. You were not wrong in this regard. Nor were you wrong in attempting to drive modernisation and renewal of hotels and resorts. Nor were you wrong in moving promotional efforts to greater use of new technologies. This use was in your tourism plan. It looked very impressive. You were not wrong, but we haven't seen any evidence. Nor have we seen any evidence of improvements to winter tourism. Do you remember these? True, the two-to-three years are not yet up, but the meagre spends on promotion were going to reap some benefit and your plan for winter tourism was the first ever such plan for winter tourism. Wasn't this what you told us?

Now you have gone, where are you going? Do you have a nice job in business somewhere? It must be good in order for you to leave politics and not just the tourism ministry. You had so much ambition. Two times you had tried to become leader and two times you had missed out. First to Rosa Estaras and then to your chum José Ramón Bauzá. Or is he your chum? Rival? It's hard to say, but many say that it was you, and not José Ramón, who was the driving-force in the party. What will he do now that you have gone?

And what can we expect of your successor? Jaime Martinez. "Square man". Isn't this the nickname he has? Something like this. He clearly enjoys a good lunch anyway. What will he do now that you have gone? You had at least been mayor of Calvia before you became minister. Calvia, town of Magalluf, Santa Ponsa, Peguera, Illetes, Palmanova. Town of so much tourism. More than any other town in Mallorca. More than mostly any town in Spain. Yes, you must have known about tourism. But what of Jaime? He was an architect. He worked with you at the town hall and then he became director-general at the ministry. Now he has your job. What will he have learned from you? What will he know of tourism other than drawing up architects' plans for hotel developments? Oh, possibly quite a lot. How you praised his efforts in putting together the tourism law, the one with so much for the hotels and so little for others.

Farewell, Carlos. Mallorca's politics will not be the same without you. The deer's balls, the girlfriend's job, the slur on the Guardia. And there was also your saying that the Costas Authority were useless (maybe we didn't completely disagree with you on this one) and the business with your personal trainer, his sister and the 800 grand. Whatever that was all about. With your going, we lose not just entertainment but also interest. You were never boring, put it that way. Maybe we also lose some honesty and consistency. Why were people so taken aback by your policies? You had spoken of them before the elections in 2011. We knew what you thought. We might not have agreed, but you said what you believed in and, for the most part, you did not veer from saying what you believed in.

And I have lost a prime character in the Mallorcan play. In the Mallorcan political pantomime. You have been my Prince Charming, my Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, my Carlos Slim. Or simply, Carlos. Your Christian name alone was enough. We knew who you were. We shall indeed miss you.