Smelling Rats: Deer's balls and Artur Mas

There's a smell around. It's a not unfamiliar one. It's the smells of rats. I smell rats. At least two of them. One rat is a rat that isn't a deer, the smell of the other rat has wafted across from Catalonia.

I don't know what to make of the Delgado photos. In that, I don't know why they have appeared when they have, i.e. now. Their appearance may simply be because they were delivered to the press out of the blue. Possibly. But the press tend to have these things hanging around, waiting for an opportune moment. As I suggested yesterday, coming so soon after the Bosch-Company diving affair, there is a hint of more than mere coincidence. Not that I don't take great delight in the Partido Popular thrashing around in embarrassment - I do - but when photos of the type that embarrass Delgado and the PP are as old as they are (at least eighteen months), it is very reasonable to ask why now and to wonder if they have indeed just turned up out of the blue.

The photos have gone international. The "Daily Mail" has featured them, reiterating the bad image line that the local press has hammered home and provoking not untypical, British readership Spain-is barbaric-and-cruel-to-animals comments. The "it-sets-back-animal-rights" argument that is being trotted out locally is one of righteous indignation without any pause to raise the question of the timing. It is an argument that is also wrong. It sets animal rights forward. A photo of a stupid politician with a deer's balls on his head should work far greater wonders in shifting Spanish opinion than any demo outside a bullfight.

Delgado should be congratulated for making an idiot of himself and for promoting animal rights. He should also be congratulated, and of course all the righteousness entirely misses this point, for providing one of the most hilarious examples of politician berkdom that one is ever likely to encounter, even in a country blessed with as many capable of such berkdom as Spain has. The image with the balls on his head is one destined no doubt for "Have I Got News For You" or a similar show; it is a comedian and satirist's dream. It might be one that means Spain (or more accurately, Mallorca) being poked fun at, but Delgado is the one who should be the butt of the jokes.

While I smell a rat at the timing of the release of the photos, the smell is nothing like as strong as that coming from Catalonia. A few days ahead of the election which may give Artur Mas the mandate to possibly stage a referendum on Catalonian independence, what happens? Out of the blue comes what is said to be a police report in which Mas is implicated for taking kickbacks for public works contracts. The report is odd, as neither the prosecutor nor the judge in charge of the case into contractual wrongdoings in Catalonia appears to be aware of it. The public's attention to the existence of this report came in the right-wing "El Mundo", no great fan of Mas's independence ambitions therefore. Mas is going to sue.

Whatever the truth might be of what "El Mundo" has to say, and former president Jordi Pujol is also named by the paper and is also taking legal action, the timing has to be queried. The suspicion is of an attempt, and a possibly crude one at that, to blacken Mas's name just prior to the election.

The press is all about getting scoops. Of course it is. But I have commented before on the degree to which the media is influenced by political parties in Spain. This sort of influence is exerted elsewhere - as we know - but in Spain, it is the case that you have to consider much of what appears in the media in terms of motive. And whose motive, more to the point.

The two stories - Delgado and the deer, Mas and the alleged kickbacks - are very different. The first should be treated for what it is, the story of a politician who has provided a moment of high but warped comedy; the second, if the story proves to be without foundation (and there may be some foundation), is far more serious. Spain is a country that might fall apart because of Mas and Catalonia. It still has an immature and undeveloped sense of real democracy, one that would be enhanced by Catalonia staying where it is, i.e. inside Spain, but being a constant thorn in the state flesh to ensure that this democracy is one day truly demonstrated. But within this immaturity there is a fourth estate which has yet to demonstrate that it might genuinely one day claim to be independent. For now, too many rats can be smelt, and too often.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.