The Politics Of Dancing

"Right leg in, right leg out, right leg in, shake it all about." No, hang on, there's something wrong here. Let me see. Ah yes. "Left leg in, left leg out, left leg in, shake it all about." That's much better. Not that it was really what you would call the hokey cokey. It was more a vain - very vain - attempt at reviving the Tiller Girls, which required some doing on behalf of the likes of environment, agriculture and fisheries minister, Vicenç Vidal. Heavyweight Vince was all for giving it a go, and he certainly entered into the spirit, a leg (a left one) raised barely to the horizontal, clad in the political pantaloons de mode of the present day: ill-fitting jeans.

Of particular surprise was that they all appeared to have agreed on what dance it was they were attempting (the conga, allegedly). Under normal procedures of agreements for change, a commission would be called and dialogue undertaken in order to arrive at consensus. But no, for once they just got on with it. They being what I shall now refer to as the PM(P) - PSOE, Més, (Podemos), the brackets indicating that We Can aren't sure whether they're in or out (leg or otherwise).

The Tiller Girls routine was all the more surprising given the presence of contrarians of the Laura Camargo ilk, the Podemos boot girl who you would think would have opted for some punkish pogoing, replete with the odd head butt and a right hook. This dancing in the street, dancing to a brand new beat certainly didn't entail any Jaggeresque moving like Jagger. Quite what its movement was, was difficult to ascertain, but as it was a dance (sic) of victory and celebration, surely the choice was wrong. The glorious victory was the entirely expected repeal of the reviled Law of Symbols. Catalan flags can now hang proudly over the doors to every infant school in the Balearics. But didn't this triumph against symbols demand something more symbolic in a dance style? Why weren't they doing a jota or some such traditional folk dance? It's not as if Francina's not up for a spot of folkloric prancing, muscling in on cossier performances and what have you.

But no. It was the Tiller Girls. Or the hokey cokey. Or the conga. Or whatever it was meant to be. Something of a metaphor for the government therefore.

Those of you of a certain vintage may recall the hit (the only one) by the group Re-Flex. "The politics of dancing," the lyric went, "the politics of ooo feeling good". Suddenly, and most disturbingly, politicians are discovering dance. It wasn't only the PM(P). María Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría Antón, all of whom constitute the iron lady deputy premier (otherwise and more accurately known as the vice-president) of Spain, was ooo feeling good when she took to the dance floor of national television. And a right little mover she was too, gyrating in the company of six hulks (actually not-so hulks) along to Mark Ronson. "Uptown funk you up." Yes, that was funk you up, and she ended by kissing the head of a baldy bloke. One trusts that she doesn't do this with Rajoy. The head-kissing that is, and indeed the dancing, though she was to reveal that Mariano is a "bailongo". A bi what? It is a dance aficionado, one for example down the local disco.

So maybe we can expect Mariano to join Soraya. Together they'll be ooo feeling good, demonstrating that they are just normal human beings after all, dancing their way to electoral victory. Or possibly committing political murder on the dance floor: their own.