The Great Mallorcan Tax Giveaway

When all else fails - and it has - the political magician has one last trick which he hopes will win the gasps and applause of the electorate audience. Off comes the top hat and out pops the rabbit which fires a pop gun with the words tax cuts scrawled on a scruffy piece of paper dangling from the final lifeline shot by a failing administration. See the Great Bauzá! Be amazed by his wizardry! Be agog at his political-death-defying feats!

The Bauzá Magic Show has been a roaring success. He has sawn ex-finance minister Aguiló in half. Made former education man Rafael Bosch disappear. Turned Palma's Mateo Isern into a frog. Conjured up a teaching system of awe-inspiring failure. Subjected his own party to the thousand cuts of swords thrust into a box that once contained Balearic regionalist identity. Symbolically turned the Catalan flag into the red and yellow of Spanish nationhood. Yes, a fabulous success. Ah but, there is always the sleight of hand and the rabbit with the tax giveaway.

Anyone out there remember austerity? It was ushered in with grim-reaper solemnity by José Ramón. Dourness, parsimony, cuts of different sorts - to personnel, services, budgets - were for the people of the Balearics to have to suffer for four years. The long faces of crisis were to endure while the vandalised public finances, looted and battered by the previous lot, were slowly mended, nailed back together and given a fresh lick of whitewash. But suddenly, the long faces have been replaced by the happy, smiling features of José Ramón, clapping wildly at every PP mayoral selection decision and beaming his most maniacal of beams.

All that austerity, and do you know what? The current, austerity-driven Balearic Government will be spending over 350 million euros more than when it started. It has managed to add over 1,000 million euros of new debt. Pretty good going, huh? The budget for 2015 - 362 million euros higher than in the first year of government - will include items of expenditure such as increasing the amounts given to political parties, like the PP, which will have twice as much to spend on advertising next year, and giving more to the IB3 broadcaster, firmly under the control of the PP and firmly made to utter only words of Mallorquín and not Catalan.

This non-austere generosity can be explained by the "great effort" of the past three years to overcome the "grave situation" that Bauzá was confronted with. Yes, he truly has been a magician. And what's more, the people of the Balearics will be better off to the tune of 250 million euros of lower taxes next year. Though don't anyone get too carried away, as there is an apparent contradiction in this - 160 million euros more to be raised through income tax and IVA. But don't let's dwell on this. Bauzá certainly isn't. The 250 million euros giveaway is what will get the electorate clapping as wildly as he does.

There are, of course, elections coming up and so there is an explanation which differs to the "great effort" one. Taxes down, budgets up, let's spend lots of money and see those PP names filling the ballot boxes. Tax cuts by government and tax cuts by town halls, just a couple of which are Pollensa and Calvia. "Electioneering", cried the socialist opposition in Calvia, which was perfectly true, though there has also been the "great work of management" by the Manu administration, said one of the PP deputy mayors. And what cuts these are in Calvia. 60% off for "large discos" for instance. Who on earth has Calvia got in mind, do you suppose? Oh well, nothing like recognising the good works that will see the phoenix rise from the ashes of some rocks in Magalluf. And nothing like the wave of the magician's wand and the magician's tax-cut incantation. "Abracadabra!" And with that, all the PP woes were blown away in a puff of smoke.

MALLORCA TODAY - What Taiwan makes of the pain in Spain

The Spanish press has been taken aback that Spain is the focus for so much overseas attention. How can it be? There is so much to sink teeth into, and even the Taiwanese are up to it. The link is to a video (with English subtitles), featuring Rajoy as Pinocchio.

And according to "The Guardian", Spain's cultural fabric is being torn apart. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRDPnrOIl-o

The Guardian

The Dying Art Of The Fiesta Poster

The fiesta poster has a status akin to the posters of the 1960s that burst out of the psychedelia movement. They are, to use a dreadfully over-used word, "iconic" and can often seem to be as if not more important than the fiestas they are publicising.

One says, "has a status", but the past tense is now more appropriate. The posters had this status until crisis came along. Even this has taken a time to have an effect, but fiesta posters and their accompanying programmes are noticeably less elaborate. It has really only been this year, though, that there has been a marked austerity that has crept into fiesta publicity, while town halls might also be more aware of what they are commissioning, ever since Palma was caught out by a poster design for Sant Sebastià that had been nicked.

Sant Sebastià is some way off, but Palma has already announced a massive cut to the budget, which includes a saving of 100,000 euros on the fireworks. As one councillor sort of put it, it is difficult to justify spending 100,000 euros for half-an-hour's worth of going up in smoke. One might well ask if such spend had ever been justifiable. But with such a knife having been taken to the total budget, one can anticipate far less grand a publicity effort as well.

Palma might well take a lead from northern fiestas. Puerto Alcúdia's Sant Pere fiesta had a perfectly decent poster and programme this year, one that used images from the past and that were representative of tourism, fishing and the port's patron. What the town hall hadn't commissioned (or quite probably hadn't been encouraged to commission) was what had been the publicity for the two previous fiestas - one, a programme that was in the shape of a fish, the other, one that could be folded and made into a hat.

Both were all well and innovative, but as anyone who has ever had anything to do with printing in Mallorca can tell you, print costs are excessive (and unreasonable) enough as they are, without having to then factor in costs for complicated cutting and folding.

Pollensa's Patrona this year has made do with a very much simpler design approach. The poster shows the symbol of the town's "gall" (cock to you and me) with crossed swords to denote the Moors and Christians. Otherwise, the programme is largely stripped of colour, which compares with last year's reliance on colour photography. The saving won't necessarily be huge, but the design and the programme send out a message of austerity being applied.

Then there is the publicity for Can Picafort's Mare de Déu d'Agost fiestas. This year's efforts have taken on such an appearance of austerity that the poster looks as though it has been scanned from some old design, which it may well have been. The result, though, is shoddy, while the programme's use of colour is minimal to say the least.

Can Picafort, or rather Santa Margalida, spends a fair old wedge on fiestas, with a sizable chunk going on what is the most spectacular of all the northern fireworks displays. This seems to have escaped drastic cuts, but the publicity most definitely hasn't. It is a shame, because Can Picafort, rare for a Mallorcan fiesta, has in the past been able to graphically convey a sense of humour. The year after the naughty boys first released live ducks during the duck-tossing race and wore Power Rangers masks to disguise themselves, the fiesta poster showed two children with the same type of mask and a real duck. It was arguably the best poster that any fiesta had ever produced, probably helped by a town hall that had to be threatened with legal action if it didn't comply with the banning of live ducks, which it eventually did.

Both the posters and the programmes are pieces of publicity for imparting information. In this respect, elaborate productions are unnecessary, while printing either of them is questionable when the information is easily disseminated via the internet. But such a pragmatic approach misses the point. The programmes can be more minimalist, but the posters should still be of high impact. Apart from encouraging creative design, they serve as expressions for local communities, and in Mallorca, great emphasis is placed on artistic endeavour as an aspect of these communities, not least in Pollensa with its long association with art.

Posters are more than just a means of communicating, they have their own intrinsic worth not just as pieces of art but as a reminder of how communication once was, of a time when the poster was fundamental and very often was "iconic".


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Festival Of Austerity: Pollensa 2012

Peter Greenaway's film "The Draughtsman's Contract" was my introduction to this most original of British directors. The late seventeenth-century civility of an English country house hid a secret, one that was slowly revealed by the landscape drawings of a young artist. The film is a murder-mystery masterpiece in a Baroque style, and it was the Baroque, in the form of Michael Nyman's score, that added to the film's overall weirdness.

Greenaway and Nyman have collaborated on several occasions since. Nyman has become one of the great names in the world of film music. He is to be the headline act at this year's Pollensa festival.

I went to the presentation of this year's festival programme with a sense of foreboding. It had already been announced that the festival would be broader in its scope in becoming more of an arts festival than purely a music festival, but the music is what the Pollensa festival has always been about, and the immediate pre-presentation information had suggested that there had been a fair cut to it.

Purely by chance, I opened the programme brochure at the page devoted to Nyman. Blimey, Michael Nyman. That's a coup, I thought. And it is a coup, but on closer examination it became clear that Nyman was a rare highlight in a festival programme which bears little resemblance to the diversity that has been evident at recent editions of the festival.

To be charitable, and one should be charitable, artistic director Joan Valent, working under considerable constraints, has created some musical themes within themes. Along with Nyman's Baroque and minimalist style, there will be other Baroque works. But in truth, this is a festival for austere times, there is no getting away from the fact. The number of concerts is down to ten, and five of these are by Josep Vicent's World Orchestra, or components thereof. This essentially youthful orchestra has a highly credible name, there's no questioning that, but for it to be responsible for half of the concerts is an indication of how the programme has had to be put together this year.

At the presentation, Pollensa's mayor Tomeu Cifre referred to the many difficulties that have surrounded the staging of this year's festival. There is bound to be criticism of the programme, but critics should take the charitable view. There isn't the funding available, and everyone knew there wouldn't be, while Pollensa town hall were left in the financial lurch last year when the Balearic Government's tourism ministry did not come up with the aid that it had promised.

It is very noticeable that the government's involvement this year does not come from the tourism ministry. It comes from the culture ministry, and it is about time that it did. I have questioned previously the tourism aspect of the festival, as I am far from convinced that it has ever generated a significant amount from what has always been a cultural event, primarily for Mallorca's residents. At least the festival now resides in the correct government ministry.

Mayor Cifre also referred to tourism in connection with the festival, but a look at the entire programme, which includes sessions on music in the cinema and the crime novel as well as an exhibition of plastic-art sculpture, gives the game away. It has very little for the tourist. The only other international name that many might have heard of (and I'm assuming that many might even have heard of Nyman) is Ludovic Bource, who won an Oscar for his score for "The Artist". Bource will be having a piano conversation with Nyman and Valent's pianos in a special presentation on music in the cinema. It is to take place at the Hotel Formentor, which exposes something of an elitist quality to the whole programme and not one for the general tourist hoi-polloi.

The most charitable view of this year's programme is that it was essential the festival went ahead, even if it faced mayor Cifre's many difficulties. The festival is part of Mallorca's cultural scene, and were it to stop for even one year, it might not come back. But one does have to ask just how valued the festival is. Camper have come on board as a sponsor, Colonya Bank is there, as Colonya often is, as are Barceló, through the Hotel Formentor, and the Son Brull Hotel, but when the festival's financial difficulties and therefore future became evident last year, I wondered whether private sponsorship would come to the festival's rescue. Up to a point it has, but it needs more. And you need only look at the music programme for this year to know that it does.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Small Is Beautiful?

President Bauzá's right hand. A question is how far to the right is the right-hand man. Josep Aguiló, vice-president and in command of the economy, industry, employment, business. For a representative of what is intended to be a "small" government, he has got himself one hell of a big department.

Aguiló takes control of Balearic finances amidst a pantomime routine being played out by the governmental incomers and outgoers. It's one to do with the state of the finances in the islands and specific administrations. The government's debt is this high, say the incomers. Oh no it isn't, respond the outgoers. Palma council's up to its neck to this level of debt. Oh no it isn't.

Let's just accept that the finances aren't very good. They are bad enough that the Balearic parliament is owed several million euros by the regional government and is in serious danger of not being able to pay its staff. There's just one example.

The pantomime routine is familiar enough. New lot comes in, blames the previous lot. Aguiló is blaming the previous lot for having approved a budget in 2008 that was too ambitiously expansionist. As it turned out. The Antich administration was clobbered by economic crisis, but it, like the central government, fooled itself into not believing what was happening. Maybe it was a case of trying to keep up spirits, but when Zapatero famously announced there was no crisis, he did so at a time when he was driving an economy whose wheels were fast coming off.

The new government's mantra is one of austerity and small government. Austerity we can probably understand. Can't pay, won't pay, because there isn't any money. But what is small government?

On the face of it President Bauzá's small government is about having fewer ministries and fewer departments within these ministries. The number of directorate-generals have been slashed to the extent that only of the new super-ministries, Biel Company's agriculture-environment-land behemoth, has more or less retained the same number of departments.

Moving the furniture around on the organisation structure doesn't amount to small government. Some savings may be evident from tossing the odd wormhole-ridden Welsh dresser into a skip, but the result is one of being not as large rather than small; the tasks of government remain much the same even if there are fewer bodies to perform them. Maybe it's because they are expected to work harder, but the salaries of Bauzá's cabinet will in fact increase.

Small government is a political philosophy as opposed to a way of drawing an organisational chart. On the principle that structure follows strategy, which it does, or should do, then Bauzá's administration bears a strong resemblance to that of President Antich. The new structure, though, obscures the strategy. Quite deliberately so, you fancy, as this is where small government really kicks in.

Small government, so the theory would have it, is a means of getting government out of people's hair, of not interfering overly in citizens' day to day. The concept, and you can also call it limited government, goes right back to the American founding fathers; Thomas Jefferson was deeply suspicious of governments that were too powerful.

Limiting the degree to which governments control people's lives and tell them how to live is a positive, but Jefferson's principles are not what small government has come to mean. Instead it is shorthand for government not spending money. It can also mean that demands on citizens to spend money, in the form of taxes, are reduced. But they still have to pay somewhere along the line. And the line is one of deregulation and privatisation.

The CCOO union, as I remarked the other day, was probably overstating it when it raised fears of privatisation in education, but the fact that it has raised it makes it a possibility. It is the process of government potentially relinquishing its direct hold over certain provisions that leads to the question about Sr. Aguiló. How far might he go?

The extent of measures that the new government might enact raises again the question as to how much the local Partido Popular is being guided or driven by the national party. Mariano Rajoy, who is likely to succeed Zapatero, has said that what will happen in the Balearics will be an "advance" on what the PP would do nationally. Without overtly saying so, Rajoy is implying that the Balearics are a test bed, an experiment. It's how far the experiment is meant to go that is the issue.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.