Running In The Podemos Family

What's the difference between Level 42 and Level 33? The first is the name of a relatively successful pop combo from the 1980s and the second isn't. Nine levels separate the two, but both share something in common. Level 42 borrowed Douglas Adams' answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. Level 33 is the answer to the ultimate question of Podemos, its universe and everything, the ultimate question, in this instance, not only being what the hell is Level 33 but why, in the name of everything consensual and participatory in democratic regeneration, anyone should give a monkey's.

In a Level 42, Mark King style, it runs in the family, you know: the Podemos family, with its occasional flirtations with a Chinese way or whichever direction happens to be flavour "de jour". The flip-flop nature of the Podemos family makes it nigh on impossible to pin down the ultimate question that surrounds it, let alone the ultimate answer, but Level 33 gets close.

For those of you who don't know, Level 33 is the mysterious term applied to one-time senior governmental officials who, once a new lot gets in, are booted out of a job but continue to receive a monthly payment of between 400 and 800 euros. Their numbers are such that they cost the government around a million a year. They, those who have attained Level 33, the meaning of which is lost even on me (it is something obscure in the quirkiness of public administration), have been the target of  the ire of the left, a civil service "caste" benefiting from ongoing public-money largesse: the target, therefore, for the full-on agitprop of Podemos and Wild Man Més, aka David Abril.

Into the Level 33 argument strode The Font of all middle-of-the-road Mallorcan politics, Jaume of that ilk. El Pi proposed that Level 33 shouldn't go the way of all old Level 42 CDs and be hauled off to the Green Point recycling centre. Or just be scrapped. The Font of all parliamentary knowledge observed that the courts may well have a field day if this was done. Astonishingly enough, Podemos agreed with him, its leader, Dave Spart, doubtless having consulted - via Twitter - with the party's new legal guru, the good former judge Yllanes.

Having raised an amendment which backed The Font, the Podemistas promptly changed their minds. It had been an "error" to have agreed with El Pi and thus be exposed as a party of the centre or even vaguely of the right, something that would never do. They withdrew the amendment. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, while the courts began to sharpen their knives.

As Mark King once sang: "looking back it's so bizarre, it runs in the family". It is and and it does. And we're still not sure what either the ultimate question or answer is, other than that Level 33 shows how they can oddly change direction. They'll both be different this time next week; it runs in the Podemos family.


Index for November 2015

Air connectivity Mallorca - 18 November 2015
Balearic budget - 2 November 2015
Catalonia independence - 13 November 2015
Football history in Mallorca - 29 November 2015
Franco and protest - 4 November 2015
Health centre all-day opening - 23 November 2015
Holiday rentals - 28 November 2015
IB3 Andreu Manresa - 26 November 2015
Institutions and change - 20 November 2015
Jimi Hendrix in Mallorca - 22 November 2015
Mallorca's film history - 15 November 2015
Mallorca's other resorts and investment - 10 November 2015
Markets - 17 November 2015
Mushrooms - 8 November 2015
Palacio de Congresos - 27 November 2015
Pla region tourism promotion - 19 November 2015
Podemos and hoteliers - 16 November 2015
Podemos and Level 33 - 30 November 2015
Podemos and the General - 9 November 2015
Podemos and the Judge - 24 November 2015
Promoting Mallorca - 3 November 2015
Ramon Llull and cultural tourism - 6 November 2015
Religious tourism - 12 November 2015
Ritch Miller - 1 November 2015
Self-service alcohol - 14 November 2015
Tourism investments for the Balearics - 5 November 2015
Tourist tax - 7 November 2015, 21 November 2015, 25 November 2015
Urban green space in Mallorca - 11 November 2015