Piling On The Agony

What on earth has it come to when the prime minister of Spain can be found wandering around with a selfie stick? Mariano has suddenly got the camera bug. There he was, not so long ago, beaming close up and personal with the boy Nadal and last week he was waving the wand about in the company of some Young Conservatives. This is not the sort of behaviour we expect of him. Anyone would think he was a man of the people, more at home cowering behind a sofa rather than being snapped alongside the kids. And then, blow me, he was in Palma for a sort of dress-down Thursday on the streets of the city with his new found (renewed found) best friend José Ramón. Sans tie may be a de rigueur fashion statement by Mallorcan politicians, but really ... Rajoy? Mind you, as it was about 100 in the shade, he could have been forgiven for having donned flip flops and a Real Madrid t-shirt (so long as he kept the shirt on, because otherwise he would have contravened the city's civic ordinance). As it was, he stuck to the Armani-style suit trousers, while JR was in his best jeans. (Which are the favoured jeans brands of Mallorca's politicos, do you suppose?)

Then it was off to the Son Moix for a blue-flag-waving rally. "One Mariano, there's only one Mariano," they didn't chant as Mariano reeled off the good news of the previous 72 hours, the rabbits that had been plucked from the magician's hat, such as growth outstripping even that of Germany. JR announced there would be 40,000 new jobs. A tenth of that number - somewhat fewer than for a typical home match against a Second Division side no one has ever heard of - cheered and cheered. "Who are yer? Who are yer? Who are yer?" they didn't taunt PSOE or Podemos.

A Bauzá bounce had suddenly bound on to the pre-election scene, if only in JR's estimation. According to PP internal polls, there would be 26 seats in parliament and not the 20 that other polls had been predicting (who can trust polls these days?). "Boing, boing, boing," the blue-flag-wavers should have been belting out in a Baggies fans way. Or will it be a Zebedee boing come next Sunday? Time for bed.

While all this rallying of the troops was going on, someone with nothing better to do had been taking a look at the Balearics PP's election website. And what did they find? An advert for hemorrhoids. Or rather, the image of a model (female) who had appeared on a British website in 2013 which had been promoting its "detox for hemorrhoids". What was happening? Was this a case of JR bringing his family business to the party again? As the owner of a pharmacy, were the PP promising to rid the whole of the Balearic population of piles? What an electoral gambit that would be. But alas, no. The agency had cocked up. As it had also done by posting an image that Santander bank had previously used. The people in the photo didn't look Mallorcan, said the political scientist who had made the discovery but who really ought to get out more. Sadly, therefore, the PP's message of "per un futur bon" was not one of a bon future of relief from piles.

But back at the Son Moix, Mariano was going on about tourism. It is "indestructible in the islands," he announced (and for once didn't refer to Mallorca as the island of Palma). This was by way of an attack on ideas the left might have of reintroducing an eco-tax, but then there are other ways in which tourism can be destructible. Poor image, for instance, and so, naturally enough, Magalluf and its peculiarities were being laid bare by the British red tops once more. This time it was "The Mirror" and a video of some bloke dressed as a woman being given a thrashing by a dwarf during an S&M stag-party do in an - as yet - unnamed Maga bar. "The Mirror" conveniently posted a photo of a dwarf with a bike on its website and quoted "a source close to the Magalluf bar scene" who said that nothing had changed, despite the vow to clean the place up. Yep, the red tops will do anything they can to drag Maga's name down further, will ensure they have their slime-ball moles in place in order to try and dish some dirt and will also manage to misunderstand. Politicians had told local media last year, the paper said, that Magalluf would be a "mature tourist zone", thus totally failing to understand (or perhaps deliberately so) that this is not a reference to behaviour. Idiots.