Confidence Lost

Confidence. A virtue that one has and a virtue that others bestow upon one. Or remove. There has been much confidence removed and lost over the past days. Sam Allardyce, confidence lost in a man over-confident of his position. Pedro Sánchez, PSOE's general secretary, fighting for his political future, as confidence in him drains away along with many of the national executive who have resigned. The Balearic government, the confidence in which is a constant state of flux largely dependent on external influences, such as the manoeuvres by and against Sánchez. Lluís Segura, the chief attorney representing the Balearic government; Caterina Amengual, the same government's director for biodiversity and natural spaces.

Confidence in Big Sam had to be seen to be lost. In times such as these, of transparency and accountability (we are led to believe), it was necessary for him to be sacrificed by a pious English FA, the champions of institutional fair play and nothing else. Sánchez may learn his fate this weekend. He has appealed to the "militancy" in taking on the "barons", who would prefer that he didn't break bread with Podemos but instead fail to say either yes or no - to abstain and allow Mariano Rajoy's continuance. Confidence is arguably ebbing from both camps: a party, PSOE, in disarray, its one-time confidence, hewn from a total of more than twenty years of democratic government, a fading memory.

The Balearic government has a crisis of confidence. Its leading figures make confident statements yet are prone to vacillation. The public is not confident in knowing who genuinely governs or what is being governed. A victim of an unconfident, enfeebled PSOE that cast around for lifelines, it is being strangled by these very ropes.

Segura and Amengual are minor characters in this drama. They are ones of whom the public would have known little and in whom the public would have had little interest. Thrown into the limelight these past days, they are now known and they are now no more. Both represent sides of the opaque coin of transparency and accountability. The virtuous state of this T and A should supposedly rise above all else in this era of so-called government of change. But it does not.

Lluís Segura, a legal man rather than politician, fell foul of politics. He made the wrong political decision. To drop a case for money laundering against the arch enemy of governmental T and A, the endlessly corrupt Jaume Matas, was a sin. Confidence lost, stripped away, sacked. Podemos want to call him to account, to appear before their baying ranks in parliament and explain this sin. His protectors in PSOE, for whom it was expedient that confidence in him should be seen to have been lost, say that if one civil servant is forced to appear before parliament, then where will it end.

Maybe so or maybe Segura might say something that PSOE find uncomfortable. His Attorney's Office is in direct line of charge by the ministry for the presidency and therefore the relevant minister, Pilar Costa (also government spokesperson), and the president herself. They insist they knew nothing of Segura's decision. If they did not, then he had acted with over-confidence. He was, like Big Sam, either naive or just stupid. Let Matas off the hook in the current atmosphere, and the wolf pack would gather. It did, and he has been eaten.

It is, though, reasonable to require an explanation. There may well have been very good reasons for the decision. These, however, are abandoned in the skirmishing that undermines this government. Podemos and Més insist, PSOE must accede. Confidence lost. Or confidence, hopefully, semi-retained.

Then there is Amengual. Her political master was the environment minister, Vicenç Vidal, a man from Més. She was sacked because there was the need for a new direction, for someone more technical and communicative. She had done well, said Vidal, but the message was loss of confidence. She can't have been doing well, if confidence had been lost. The message was thus mixed. Why had she really been sacked?

Despite the claims of T and A - transparency and accountability - there is mystery that obscures the function and purpose of senior officials like Segura and Amengual. How they come to be appointed in the first place. Who is doing the appointing. What they are doing. Some of these officials come and go. The tourism ministry lost a director of the tourism agency - "personal reasons" that were supposedly a better job - who was replaced by a friend but also one-time sparring partner of Biel Barceló. There was and is the director of the health service, famously the husband of the health minister. Podemos have never forgotten that.

Greater transparency, as Podemos have urged, is needed for appointments, but it is also needed in explaining why confidence is lost and why someone else is then appointed.


Index for September 2016

Anarchists and tourism - 19 September 2016
Architectural harmony - 9 September 2016
Balearic community - 22 September 2016
Balearic government condition - 23 September 2016, 25 September 2016
Balearic government logo - 14 September 2016
Cabrera organisation and management - 13 September 2016
Cala Millor - 26 September 2016
Confidence in government - 30 September 2016
Cultural tourism - 17 September 2016
Formentor Conversations - 15 September 2016
Francina Armengol and attic - 6 September 2016
Holiday rentals legislation - 3 September 2016
Inca tourism - 2 September 2016
Ironman, Alcudia - 24 September 2016
Jaume Matas and Son Espases Hospital - 16 September 2016
La Beata and pot-smashing - 4 September 2016
Mallorca Day - 11 September 2016
Mallorca's Roman occupation - 18 September 2016
Podemos and tourism - 1 September 2016
Posidonia and recreational yachts - 7 September 2016
PSOE and national government - 27 September 2016
Rajoy investiture debates - 5 September 2016
Real Mallorca / tourist saturation - 12 September 2016
Sustainable tourism - 28 September 2016
Tourist places limits - 10 September 2016, 20 September 2016, 21 September 2016
Tourist prizes - 28 September 2016
Virtual tourism - 8 September 2016

Good Moaning: Accountability

There is a compilation of some of the best moments of Officer Crabtree on YouTube. "Allo Allo", it is fair to say, did have its detractors. Not me. Juvenile the show could be, and little was more juvenile than Officer Crabtree's attempts at speaking French (albeit in English). "Good moaning." Priceless.

Oddly enough, there is a line of etymological argument which suggests that "moaning minnie" is a reference to a one-time captain in the French army. A certain Claude Etienne Minié introduced a bullet which came to be known as the minnie ball. It almost certainly wasn't the origin, but the French connection seems in keeping with Officer Crabtree, as is what probably is the origin: to describe the sound of the German Nebelwerfer mortar of the Second World War.

As to when "moaning minnie" definitively slipped into general colloquial use is not really known, but its longevity is such that it proves that there was such a thing as moaning before they invented social media. That might seem hard to believe. However did people moan before Facebook came along and facilitated good moaning?

My own personal moaning on this global Moan-a-Gram system has, I like to believe, been moderate. I rarely use it anyway, but one moan I can recall had to do with being fined for parking on the pedestrian zone by Alcudia market. All of one minute. If that. Stopped to deliver to the tourist office (a town hall facility), to which I had been supplying (free) all sorts of things for several years. Along came plod (town hall employee) on a bike. Surely not? Surely yes. I never got round to sending an invoice to the town hall for all the unpaid translation work: I would have accepted the equivalent to the fine and even have been prepared to declare it for tax. They wouldn't have paid anyway. Bloody ingrates (if that doesn't sound like moaning).

I'm guessing that a key reason for not using Moanbook extensively has to do with my browser(s) no longer being supported. Oh, I've attempted to moan, but when it comes to hitting return, nothing happens. In fact, I can do virtually nothing on Moanbook any more, except to like people's moans. Should I moan that my now ancient Mac operating system is deprived of Firefox and Safari updates? Well I should, given how much the Mac cost in the first place, but I'm rather content with being unable to engage in some good moaning. And before you ask, I can't be bothered using my smartphone instead. (There's a moan I do need to get round to: why did I ever get one?)

Instead, I have to make do with everyone else's moaning, of which there is a seemingly unlimited supply. In the overall scheme of things, the fact that, inter alia, it has taken Pollensa town hall months to get its arse in gear and get some sun loungers out on the beach isn't life or death. Nor, now that the municipal posterior has been engaged and there are sun loungers for the resort's tourist class to place its collective buttocks on, is the fact that some people preferred the beach when it was lounger-less. No pleasing some folk. Moan, moan, moan.

But is this moaning such a bad thing? Good Heavens no. Moaning is good. Everyone repeat after Officer Crabtree: good moaning. And it is good for the simple reason that if it is justified, it might just have the desired effect. They take notice. Eventually.

Trivial though such issues as sun loungers can be (though God knows the principal environmental moaners in Mallorca, GOB, are elevating them to matters of state), there is a principle. Town halls are supposed to meet certain obligations. The commandment is written - thou shalt place sun loungers on thy beaches - unless thou is a municipality without beaches: life must be so much simpler for town halls like Ariany, unless the sheep are prone to moaning about the lack of pens.

The point is that there didn't used to be a culture of moaning, as in making town halls and other public administrations take note or, perish the thought, be accountable. Yes, the citizen was always prone (still is) to issuing the "denuncia" at the drop of a hat, if the hat in question offended the complainant for some obscure reason, but that was all rather personal: a bit of a hangover from the Inquisition, one's always felt. With public authorities on the other hand, all of them appointed by the state regime, you didn't moan or complain, unless you fancied a couple of years hard labour.

The culture has changed dramatically and very much for the better. Town halls seem to still struggle with accountability, but they are getting there. The more the moaning, the better. These are not the times of Officer Crabtree.

The Stench Of Unaccountability

What should have been expected? That Mariano Rajoy would appear in sackcloth, prostrate himself in front of the Spanish parliament, admit to all the sins of which he had been accused and beg for mercy? Or, in less tragic manner, would have treated the whole affair with lighthearted comedy? " 'El Mundo' got me bang to rights. It's a fair cop but Spanish society is to blame."

Spanish society, a fair proportion of it, had already cleared off to the beaches. Choosing the first of August may not have been accidental. Or perhaps it was just a further example of Rajoy tardiness. He doesn't do things in a hurry. Like going before parliament and clearing up any slight confusion there might be regarding his having allegedly trousered whole loads of black money over a number of years.

Rajoy, normally to be found as far away as it is physically possible for a democratically elected leader to be from any form of interrogation or questioning, had been reticent in having to deal with the inconvenience of addressing some bloody annoying opposition politicians who were going to stage a vote of censure if he didn't come and have a word. Unsurprisingly, once he had finally been persuaded not to carry on hiding in the cupboard, which is what he normally does, he came out in full fighting mode. Clearly, the delay in his making an appearance was so that he could work on his performance. "More aggression, Mariano. Blame the press. Blame Rubalcaba for damaging the reputation of Spain. What was that, Mariano? Yes, there is still a reputation that can be damaged. Just about. If you must, give the baying hordes a little bit. Say you're sorry for having trusted a criminal. That'll be enough."

Uncle Alfredo, along with the other baying hordes, would have known full well that Mariano wasn't going to make a resignation speech and call for an election. And there will be plenty who will argue that there was no basis for him to have to resign. It isn't as if he has been found guilty of anything. Which is true, but then what is the truth?

What we have to ask ourselves, and we are none the wiser after Rajoy's ranting, is whether "El Mundo" and "El País" were taken in by the Bárcenas papers, whether Bárcenas has engaged in some elaborate fabrication and whether, in the case in particular of "El Mundo", the paper had sought to manipulate and distort Bárcenas's documents in an attempt to bring Rajoy down and so create political instability.

Some parts of Spanish society which have been paying any attention and not preferring to lower their ears and eyes under warm seas in the Mediterranean will believe that Bárcenas has indeed made the whole thing up and has attempted to hang an innocent man. Other parts, and they are in a majority, won't know what to think or what to believe other than that the accusations implicit in the Bárcenas papers are symptomatic of the rotten core of Spanish politics.

Rajoy's admission that he made a mistake in trusting Bárcenas was akin to the willingness to make a concession in a negotiation. But Rubalcaba was right to press him on the text messages which showed him offering support to Bárcenas until earlier this year. He was only implicated at the time, argued Rajoy, not condemned. Even if they were just messages born of friendship, they raise questions as to Rajoy's judgement. And, admission or concession, they do not remove the doubts that will linger.

Rajoy's previous evasion was not just typical of him as a person, it was typical of a political system that cannot bear scrutiny. His feistiness in parliament was as much a show of personal slight having been taken as it was of indignation that he should even have to answer questions. He should, or so you would have thought in a supposedly democratic society, have made statements far earlier. But he didn't. And now, despite his admission of a mistake, he has failed to convince. A combination of his own uncommunicativeness, his tardiness and a political system that puts far too low a premium on accountability and ethics draws many to conclusions at variance with what, finally, he told parliament.

More could of course emerge. Bárcenas has only one thing in mind. Revenge. He has been hung out to dry and he doesn't care who he takes down with him. But even were more to emerge, who would know what to believe other than that the whole affair stinks of the stench of an unaccountable political system.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.