When The Seagulls Follow: Partido Popular factions

The larus is a genus of seagull. The scientific name for the Mediterranean gull is "Larus melanocephalus". The term is Greek and it means "black-headed". As such, and because of its root, it bears some similarity with the Greek word "melankholia", which passed into Old and then Modern English as initially "black bile" and eventually sadness or depression.

The "melanocephalus" does not feature in the title given to a set of awards. Larus sits on its own. The seagull genus. The bird which flaps around making an at-times God awful racket and being, also at times, an all-round nuisance. Larus is the title of annual awards handed out by the Balearics Partido Popular.

Why this title was chosen I couldn't tell you, but chosen it was in 2012 and so gave rise, if one was of a mind to make them, to any number of associations. Black-headed, melancholic, black bile, a racket, a nuisance. A seagull may look graceful as it hangs on the thermals above the shoreline, but as with many wonders of the natural world it has a spiteful and unpleasant side to it as well.

The Larus awards were presented for the first time at the end of last year. One recipient was Antoni Arabí, a former footballer who was born in Ibiza and who played for Espanyol for eight seasons. He became active in politics with the PP when he hung up his boots. Another award-winner was Joan Verger, a former president (PP) of the Council of Mallorca who died in May this year. A third recipient was the Banco de Alimentos de Mallorca. Earlier this month, this "bank" arranged for the collection of some 120 tons of food from leading supermarkets to be handed out to the needy.

The awards are designed to recognise the achievements of individuals or groups in political, cultural, social or sporting fields. The recipients are intended to be people or organisations affiliated to, friends of or sympathisers of the PP. Such qualification may or may not be rather loose. The Red Cross in the Balearics has received an award this year, a reflection, one would think, of general good works, as with the Banco de Alimentos, rather than any political affiliation.

But certain awards are quite clearly of a PP and a PP only nature. Ventura Rubí received a posthumous award this year. The one-time president of the PP in Sencelles, he was the promoter of the golf course in that town, one which had been blocked until there was a change of political regime in 2011. And another one-time president has picked up a Larus this year. He is Gabriel Cañellas, the first president of the Balearics who held the post from 1983 until he was forced to resign and step down in 1996, embroiled as he then was in the Sóller Tunnel affair.

Cañellas is an interesting figure. Effectively, he is the father of regional democracy, yet he fell from grace because of the tunnel corruption case. It was the first big corruption investigation in Mallorca. The case was eventually archived, but there are still those who insist that some of those indicted got off. Who can really say?

Seagulls invite aphorisms or metaphors. Or they did where Eric Cantona was concerned. Acceptance speeches in the name of a seagull award can also invite sayings which require interpretation. Cañellas offered not one but two. The first was a reminder not to kill that which was helped to be born. The second referred to carts and horses. What did he mean? They were oblique allusions to the people and to regionalism.

There was no mention in his speech of the economy or of the fuss about trilingual teaching or the banning of symbols. Cañellas eschewed full-frontalism in favour of the veiled broadside. Father of regional democracy, he is of a PP which was, from the start of this democracy, a supporter of regionalism. There are others from his time who are still powerful voices who believe in this regionalism too. President Bauzá doesn't. Or doesn't appear to.

The award has been seen as an attempt to mend bridges between factions, one of them represented by the Cañellas old school, and to appeal to PP opponents of Bauzá in parts of the Balearics. And in photos of the occasion, there is the president, beaming as Cañellas lectures the audience and makes, as has been suggested, a "masterly" speech. It is the beaming expression all too familiar to political descendants of former masters. It was one to always be found on the faces of Conservative Party figures whenever Margaret Thatcher appeared and spoke. It is an expression that is necessary, so as to avoid being purged and airbrushed, so as to show respect. But it is also fawning and even patronising. Place a thought bubble above Bauzá's head and what might he have been thinking behind the smile? "I hear what you say, but I'm not listening."?

The Larus stage was set, therefore, for a meeting of the old and new schools. Which one is better? Regionalism aside, Bauzá should be given some credit for the new. He has attempted to rid the party of its previously dubious behaviour, now so much in the public view thanks to Jaume Matas. Was the old school more in tune with the people though? With what is behind the truck and with what was born? It's a question only the PP can answer. Or the electorate. And meantime, the good works baton was handed to the Red Cross. From an evening of awards at Christmas time to days of soup kitchens over the festivities.