Sorry Seems To Be The Easiest Word

Reluctant though I am to use clichéd metaphor, for once I shall. You wait forever for a politician to apologise for something and, blow me, two apologies come along at once. First we had Mariano saying sorry for the albeit few and small instances of corruption committed by members of his otherwise whiter-than-white party, and now we have José Ramón requesting forgiveness from a Balearics public that has been collapsing outside health centres of a collapsing health service because there's no doctor or nurse in the house. Apology or no apology, there was no "chaos" in the health service, said the president, accusing the opposition of having said there was, to which the opposition - in the form of battling Més socialist, Biel Barceló - replied that it wasn't the opposition which had used the c-word but the media; not that it really matters who used it. Let's just say that the health service has endured a period during which it has functioned with less than full efficiency, which may be a way of saying that there has been chaos but isn't quite as headline-grabbing.

Joserra's apology amounted to apportioning blame to the health service's new computer system. Neither he nor the health minister, the boy Martí who first came up with the computer excuse, has said if any heads are rolling for the computer system having taken it upon itself to block temporary appointments. But then, what more should the public expect? It has its apology, so now all is fine. Not that this is how Barceló sees things. The College of Nursing, he informed the president, says that its members are overhwhelmed at work each day and that closure of centres was indeed due to a lack of funding. And joining the fray, we now have the CCOO union reckoning that the whole of the social services on the island are set to go totally belly-up some time in the next few months. If they do, then this will presumably also be due to a computer error.

With all attention having been concentrated on the no-staff-available notices sellotaped to the doors of the island's health centres, everyone has quite forgotten about the schools and which languages the government has said the kids should be taught in this week. Everyone, that is, except for someone with whom you may be less than familiar - Soledad Becerril, the Ombudsman, or rather the Ombudswoman, the Defensora del Pueblo de España.

The fact that Sra. Becerril has held high political office because of her membership of the Partido Popular has not prevented her from demanding information from the PP regional education ministry regarding the implementation of the TIL trilingual teaching system. Indeed, she has been asking for information since February and been getting absolutely nowhere. The ministry, as with any other public authority, is in fact obliged by law to meet requests for information by the Ombudsperson, especially when they are of an urgent nature and have been influenced by court judgements, which is the case with TIL. As the information has not been forthcoming, Sra. Becerril is threatening to denounce the ministry and thus the Balearic Government to the attorney-general on the grounds that it has been "disobedient".

So, maybe education minister, Nuria Riera, will apologise to the Ombudsperson and blame it all on a problem with the computer system. Her ministry's disobedience comes in the same week as another act of disobedience, that of Catalonia's Artur Mas; you see, like apologies, disobediences all come along at the same time. The attorney-general is looking into Artur's disobedience over the rather pointless independence consultation thing which occurred in Catalonia. And what do we do, Artur, when we are in the naughty chair? We say sorry, don't we. Or probably not.