It's Going To Be Fun In 2015

"2015 will be a year of political thrills - and colossal dangers. What-ifs aren't cashable once this most uncertain of elections is over. Nothing can be taken for granted." These are the words of Polly Toynbee writing in "The Guardian" behind a banner on the website which says that 2015 will be "a political moment of truth". Without wishing to suggest for one moment that what happens in a regional election in the Balearics is comparable to a general election in a one-time major power that could be on the point of finally ensuring that its future is behind it, they are words which, with an exception, could also apply here. Colossal dangers? I don't think so. However the regional elections go, the islands will stumble along as they have for the past thirty years making political mountains out of molehills and disappearing up a collective posterior of animosity, polarity and division that leads to ineffectualness and endless challenges to legislation in the courts which mean that "nothing can be taken for granted" because whatever political decisions might be taken will later be revealed to be illegal in some form or another. Which isn't to say that the regional elections are not relevant. They most certainly are, but above relevance there is the entertainment factor. The political thrills will be the comedy gold of what nonsense awaits us. What fun it will indeed be.

I can readily concede that not everyone shares my enthusiasm for the next few months but perhaps not everyone shares my view that the islands' politics exist for their amusement value. Everyone should. Yes, there are the serious bits, and I can readily turn my hand to politics-serious, but far preferable is politics-slapstick and politics of the old school. From the bucket loads of so-there, yah-boo, custard-pie-in-the-face politics to the green-t-shirted hordes of agitprop Dave Sparts marching on the winter palace of the Balearics Government, only to be repelled by police implementing the new and absurd "gagging law", the Balearics specialise in both. The old school, particularly that of the left, fills me with nostalgia for the days of the students union, for its dog's breakfast of Marxist-Leninists, Leninist-Marxists, Maoists, Trotskyists and for its passing motions approving ultra-vires payments to the Iranian 91 and Shrewsbury 3 and the budget for the eggs to be thrown at Keith Joseph.

It was all so fantastically divorced from any known reality, which is where the comparison with the Balearics falls down. This is real. And rather than some paltry union funding to be frittered away on some political cause which was of no interest to the student rank and file, there is a vast budget of hundreds of millions to be squandered, which is where the reality kicks in. Nevertheless, there is the air of the students union. It is vastly more than playing at politics, but when laws and decrees can be passed only for Madrid, Brussels, the courts or all three to instruct local politicians to stop arsing around, it is a reality constantly being checked by the more powerful.

Polly Toynbee speaks of a "moment of truth" in the UK. Here, it is more a moment of destiny. There was a time when I paid no attention to Mallorca's politics. This changed on the day in late 2006 when Eugenio Hidalgo, the former mayor of Andratx, was arrested. Soon after, there was a sort of night of the long knives when notary and lawyer offices were raided. Something big was stirring. We had no idea then how big it would eventually be. The reports of corruption which followed came so constantly that they suspended belief. How else could one respond other than to laugh at the sheer audacity and incredulity of what had been going on and to become deeply curious as to what sort of society - political and non-political - could give birth to such shenanigans? The moment of destiny is caused by the arrival of Podemos, a national product of the anti-corrupt but just as relevant to the Balearics; it is a moment of destiny that is the culmination of what happened in Andratx in 2006.

"This most uncertain of elections" will be uncertain because of Podemos and because of it being added to the already over-long cast list of leftist parties. In the Balearics, it is an election that can be styled as a clash between the Dracula-alike, blood-dripping Bauzá and the presence on the islands of the Guevara for the new age, the poster boy of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias. Podemos won't win (it would be a hell of an upset if they were to) but they will determine how things will be if they form part of a PSOE-led winning coalition. Let the fun begin.


Index for December 2014

Air Europa inter-island flights - 15 December 2014
Awards: Obra Cultural Balear - 11 December 2014
Balearics education ministry scandal - 13 December 2014
Balearics tourism decree - 8 December 2014, 12 December 2014
Balearics tourism economic contribution - 26 December 2014
Castellón airport - 16 December 2014
Christmas number ones - 18 December 2014
Constitution of 1931 and Balearics autonomy - 7 December 2014
Corruption in Spain - 4 December 2014, 9 December 2014
Day of the Innocents spoof - 29 December 2014
El Gordo lottery - 22 December 2014
Farming law - 10 December 2014
Fiesta of the Standard - 28 December 2014
Guanyem and Mallorca's left - 6 December 2014
Holiday lets and sharing lobby - 19 December 2014
King Felipe, Princess Cristina and corruption - 27 December 2014
LIttle Nicholas - 3 December 2014
Mallorca's fishermen - 2 December 2014
Obituaries 2014 - 30 December 2014
Phillip Hughes: Spanish reaction - 1 December 2014
Pig slaughter (matances fair) - 14 December 2014
Podemos in Palma - 20 December 2014
Quotes of 2014 - 23 December 2014
Regional elections in 2015 - 31 December 2014
Sibil-la - 21 December 2014
Tourism journalism - 17 December 2014
Up-market tourism - 5 December 2014