At The Drink: Mallorca new year political messages

The end of the old year, the start of the new, time for every good politician to come to the aid of his or her party, make some proud resolutions, predictions and boasts and hope like hell that the population is not too drunk or hungover to pay any attention. José Ramón Bauzá gave his presidential address, having wolfed down his twelve grapes for luck and probably having sunk a glass of cava or two. 10,000 new jobs will be created in 2015, he hicced and burped, consulting the back of the fag packet on which his script had been written. Under a commonly accepted principle that 2% growth - which will also occur, according to Joserra - leads to 1% growth in employment, he may well be right. But as no one really knows how many people are genuinely unemployed or indeed employed in the Balearics, it's hard to agree or disagree. If one accepts that the figure of 84,311 unemployed in November is accurate (which it isn't because it only takes account of those registered as unemployed), then the 10,000 seems fair enough, if rather too round.

The PSOE opposition was of course having none of it. "Cynical, meaningless and typical of a president who is in the last days of government," said spokesperson Pilar Costa. The 10,000 jobs boast was a "desperate attempt to give a positive message", she went on. And on. Meanwhile, her boss, Francina Armengol, was letting rip not on account of too many grapes and cavas but because of the "authoritarian" manner of the Bauzá regime and a presidential capacity for being "very strong with the weak and very weak with the strong", which was not a bad soundbite it must be said. Francina then ruined this by asserting that PSOE (which we are really meant to call PSIB in the Balearics) was "the only party capable of real change". Oh dear, oh dear. Elections come ever nearer and the C-word gets dragged out and in different languages: canvi, or cambio for those with a delicate Catalan condition. It went from bad to worse. It seemed as if Francina had after all been at the cava, sunk an entire bottle and a few hierbas as well. "The people have confidence in the Socialist Party." Eh!? These would presumably be the same people who are failing to give PSOE (PSIB) their overwhelming support in the opinion polls.

It was notable that the Partido Popular responded not through its normal spokesperson, Núria Riera, but through another of the Bauzá Babes, Marga Prohens, which, when you think about it, is a suitably feminist name (in English) to possess. Anyway, Marga wasn't going down any feminist line but was asserting that the "government has believed in people not in slogans" without perhaps appreciating that she was sloganising in the process. The question was of course, where was Núria? Had she been confined to the shadows of the teacher-transfer scandal or had she beaten Francina to the cava? We'll probably never know.