Biel Company is allegedly the president of the Partido Popular in the Balearics. For several months, despite his having been given this accolade, he was rarely to be seen or heard. He is now finally beginning to demonstrate that he is indeed the president and to allay any suspicions or fears that he had been run over by a tractor in his native Sant Joan while regressing to his former life as champion of the farming community.
If you are not already aware, then by goodness you are going to become aware that there is an election in sixteen months time. The long campaign has started. Biel will be hopeful that this campaign heralds the long goodbye for Sweet and Friendly Francina and her chums in Més and Podemos. His hope may be misplaced. Biel has not exactly been rallying the electoral troops to the PP side.
Doubtless recognising that his party is at present heading for another election disaster, Biel has come out fighting in the long campaign. If all else fails, and there is in fact nothing else to try and pin on the incumbent Balearic president, then it is necessary to call her a compulsive liar. Which he has. Francina's lying has to do with a demand that the PP repays some 150 grand of 2007 election subvention. As if anyone actually cares. It was ten years ago, it was the time of Matas. Get over it, and talk about matters in the present. But no, the compulsion - for both Biel and Francina - is to rake over the past, and where Biel is concerned, the raking appears to mainly have involved the soil of his own personal agricultural heritage.
Is Francina a compulsive liar? No, she is not. She does, however, suffer from a compulsive disorder. It is not treatable. It is called compulsive consensus. So essential has it become for Francina to insist that her government abides fully by the principle of consensus that she has clearly come to believe this. Unfortunately for Francina, no one else does. The evidence stacks up by the day and will stack up further as she and her governmental buddies go into full-on election mode. Yes, we have sixteen months of all this to endure.
If there is a compulsive liar, then last week once more revealed who it was, as if the revelation were in fact needed. Donald Trump is not just a compulsive liar, he is a compulsive lunatic. But at least with DT there is the entertainment factor, even though presidents are not usually judged by their ability to entertain us all royally. So, Biel needs to understand the true meaning of compulsive lying in a presidential sense. Francina isn't even on the first rung of the compulsion ladder; not when compared with the master who has scaled its heights in The White House.
Biel should really be devoting far greater attention to a different disorder - compulsive citizenship. All Balearic politicians suffer from this due to their constant invoking of the citizens, but where Biel is concerned he needs to take due note of the party that has named itself in the name of the citizens (there's compulsion for you) - Ciudadanos. Biel said that he wasn't worried about the rise and rise of the C's. Well, he's wrong not to be worried, especially as he needs to be very nice to them. The PP hasn't got a cat in hell's chance of recovering all the seats that Bauzá destroyed in 2015, so the C's have to be looked upon as very real, potential coalition allies after the May 2019 election.
This, however, will mean that Biel has to cosy up to the morose leader of the Cs, Xavier Pericay. And he has his own disorder - compulsive anti-Catalanism. On and on he drones in this manner. Sixteen more months we have of this. The citizens may as a result decide to switch off from the Citizens party. The citizens might also wish to know what the Citizens party has to offer them apart from not needing to have a Catalan qualification for being a nurse. Curiously enough, the wild man of Més, compulsive independentist David Abril, has hit the nail on the head in this regard. Rather than constant attacks on Catalan, he said, let's hear some policies.
Xavier will unquestionably be aghast to learn that the leadership of the Council of Majorca, one part of which (the presidential part) has compulsive Catalanism, let the Obra Cultural Balear (compulsive Catalanists and compulsive independentists) have the use of the Teatre Principal for free so that it could turn its annual awards ceremony into propaganda for the incarcerated Jordis of Catalonia, with the acting speaker of the Catalan parliament, Carme Forcadell, handing out the gongs.
According to the Council's vice-president for culture, PSOE's Francesc Miralles (not prone to the same compulsion of the president), the Council always lets the OCB have the theatre for nothing. But Francesc declined to comment on what took place and nor has he said anything about the fact that apparently the cost of transmission for this gala occasion was borne by the IB3 broadcaster and the government's culture ministry (run by Més).
Carme has since resigned as speaker, and when this became knowledge, our good friend Balti of the Balearic parliament (compulsive Republicanism) tweeted a message of support. "Health and Republic," said Balti, adding "strength from the companion islands".
Xavier will not have been impressed. Are any of us with all their various compulsive disorders?
Showing posts with label Biel Company. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Biel Company. Show all posts
Monday, January 15, 2018
Sunday, August 06, 2017
The High Summer High Jinks Of Cabrera
You know how it is. You're a member of an everyday European royal family and you're swanning around on your modest yacht. You're admiring the turquoise, crystal-clear waters of the marine reserve national park of Cabrera. You look admiringly at the velvety white sands of the small archipelago's beaches. But you know that you can't go and "privatise" these beaches by installing some handsome tents and loungers because some oik from Terraferida will be lurking in the undergrowth with a smartphone.
So, you continue on your untroubled way. What about a picnic on board? A little light lobster washed down with some Moët Chandon, for example? Very agreeable. Your man servant is preparing the dish and chilling the champagne, and then what goes and happens? The Guardia Civil happens, that's what. The force's marine service roars up to your yacht, takes one look and apologises. "Sorry, your Majesty. We mistook you for being Algerian. You haven't by any chance seen any illegals, have you?" "They went that-a-way."
With this, the Guardia takes off in hot pursuit of north Africans in far less modest crafts. Hundreds of them, all milling around Cabrera in the forlorn expectation of hitching a ride to Palma. If you're going to land illegally, Cabrera is really the last place to choose. You might continue on your way to Colonia Sant Jordi on your little boat, but you might be forced to fork out an arm and a leg for the eco-friendly vessel that normally does the crossing. And that'll blow a massive hole in the budget for eventually getting the train, having also taken the ferry, and heading for Marseille (other French destinations are possible).
Following this brief disturbance, you return to your tranquil navigation only to then get a message on your Twitter feed. It's from Vince Vidal, he of the regional environment ministry. To your horror, Vince has issued a decree: "The days of Moët and lobster in Cabrera have passed." Nervously, you look around at other modest yachts and wonder if the Terraferida/GOB oiks have commandeered one of them and are aiming long lenses in search of Moët and lobster evidence.
Once more, though, you are able to relax. Vince is aiming his ban at the Partido Popular. Given his Mésite eco-nationalist credentials, you should of course have realised that it was the PP incurring his wrath. And Vince, let's be clear (one assumes) is not a champagne and lobster man: more frito (an abundance thereof, which should of course be referred to as frit rather than frito) and a crate of Saint Mick.
And what exactly have the PP done to awaken Vince from a hard-earned, high-summer slumber? Well, to be honest, the PP haven't really done anything. But a bloke called Joan Pocoví has. Not being intimate with the minutiae of Mallorcan politics and business, you request your man servant to consult Google. It turns out that this Joan fellow once paid for PP politicos to indulge themselves in Moët and lobster in Cabrera. And one of those politicos is the now leader of the PP in the Balearics, Biel Company, who was Vince's predecessor as environment minister; he held this post when enjoying the bubbly.
Joan and Biel, it would seem, are mates. Joan, moreover, is on the Hacienda's radar in respect of the PP's dodgy, so-called B accounts. Vince has been informed that this Joan sort had apparently co-opted a worker with the environment ministry's Ibanat agency to give him a ride to Cabrera. Which was the sort of thing that Biel had also once done when carrying the cool boxes with the champers and the lobster. Vince was incandescent: "We will take decisive measures: we will start by punishing the worker who messes up the good work of Ibanat."
You, being a liberal type of royal and a generally good egg, think that this sounds a tad over the top. But no, Vince is determined to expunge the memory of the Moët days and insists that he will not tolerate this type of behaviour.
Later on, you learn that Biel believes that there have been half truths. "I am not used to commenting on half truths," he states, despite the photographic evidence of Joan arriving at Cabrera. The PP, you further discover, have gone into full-on social media mode. Their "artillery" is taking aim of Vince, who responds by forgetting his normal Catalan and giving a boost to trilingual teaching. In English, he says: "Keep Calm and Love Your Company."
What can this mean, you wonder, especially as you are pretty handy when it comes to the old Anglo. You're unsure, as is mostly everyone else. And despite Vince's fury and the PP artillery, no one much pays this latest champagne moment a great deal of attention. It is high summer after all. Silly season and all that, as well as being a time to take to the water: royal families, PP benefactors and Algerians. "No, they went that-a-way."
So, you continue on your untroubled way. What about a picnic on board? A little light lobster washed down with some Moët Chandon, for example? Very agreeable. Your man servant is preparing the dish and chilling the champagne, and then what goes and happens? The Guardia Civil happens, that's what. The force's marine service roars up to your yacht, takes one look and apologises. "Sorry, your Majesty. We mistook you for being Algerian. You haven't by any chance seen any illegals, have you?" "They went that-a-way."
With this, the Guardia takes off in hot pursuit of north Africans in far less modest crafts. Hundreds of them, all milling around Cabrera in the forlorn expectation of hitching a ride to Palma. If you're going to land illegally, Cabrera is really the last place to choose. You might continue on your way to Colonia Sant Jordi on your little boat, but you might be forced to fork out an arm and a leg for the eco-friendly vessel that normally does the crossing. And that'll blow a massive hole in the budget for eventually getting the train, having also taken the ferry, and heading for Marseille (other French destinations are possible).
Following this brief disturbance, you return to your tranquil navigation only to then get a message on your Twitter feed. It's from Vince Vidal, he of the regional environment ministry. To your horror, Vince has issued a decree: "The days of Moët and lobster in Cabrera have passed." Nervously, you look around at other modest yachts and wonder if the Terraferida/GOB oiks have commandeered one of them and are aiming long lenses in search of Moët and lobster evidence.
Once more, though, you are able to relax. Vince is aiming his ban at the Partido Popular. Given his Mésite eco-nationalist credentials, you should of course have realised that it was the PP incurring his wrath. And Vince, let's be clear (one assumes) is not a champagne and lobster man: more frito (an abundance thereof, which should of course be referred to as frit rather than frito) and a crate of Saint Mick.
And what exactly have the PP done to awaken Vince from a hard-earned, high-summer slumber? Well, to be honest, the PP haven't really done anything. But a bloke called Joan Pocoví has. Not being intimate with the minutiae of Mallorcan politics and business, you request your man servant to consult Google. It turns out that this Joan fellow once paid for PP politicos to indulge themselves in Moët and lobster in Cabrera. And one of those politicos is the now leader of the PP in the Balearics, Biel Company, who was Vince's predecessor as environment minister; he held this post when enjoying the bubbly.
Joan and Biel, it would seem, are mates. Joan, moreover, is on the Hacienda's radar in respect of the PP's dodgy, so-called B accounts. Vince has been informed that this Joan sort had apparently co-opted a worker with the environment ministry's Ibanat agency to give him a ride to Cabrera. Which was the sort of thing that Biel had also once done when carrying the cool boxes with the champers and the lobster. Vince was incandescent: "We will take decisive measures: we will start by punishing the worker who messes up the good work of Ibanat."
You, being a liberal type of royal and a generally good egg, think that this sounds a tad over the top. But no, Vince is determined to expunge the memory of the Moët days and insists that he will not tolerate this type of behaviour.
Later on, you learn that Biel believes that there have been half truths. "I am not used to commenting on half truths," he states, despite the photographic evidence of Joan arriving at Cabrera. The PP, you further discover, have gone into full-on social media mode. Their "artillery" is taking aim of Vince, who responds by forgetting his normal Catalan and giving a boost to trilingual teaching. In English, he says: "Keep Calm and Love Your Company."
What can this mean, you wonder, especially as you are pretty handy when it comes to the old Anglo. You're unsure, as is mostly everyone else. And despite Vince's fury and the PP artillery, no one much pays this latest champagne moment a great deal of attention. It is high summer after all. Silly season and all that, as well as being a time to take to the water: royal families, PP benefactors and Algerians. "No, they went that-a-way."
Sunday, March 26, 2017
Denouement Day For The PP
Today is D-Day. Domingo Day also known in co-official language terms as Diumenge Day. It will also be Denouement Day. Two one-time friends won't end up killing each other, but one will be the loser of a long and complex affair.
At some point today we will know who will be the new leader of the Partido Popular in the Balearics. I'll bet you can hardly wait to find out. And wait there has been. A very long one. Interminable. Well, not quite, as it terminates today, with one of the candidates due to be terminated. Which one? The bookies will be weeping if the long odds outsider J.R. Bauzá romps to victory. Others will be joining them. Catalanists will be wailing their woes and hurriedly reinstalling the garlic over their portals, lest Count Dracula should darken their doors once more.
Joy, though, might be unconfined in certain quarters: let's call them the hoteliers. J.R. has been going down - in all likelihood - with all guns blazing. One of them has been fired at the tourist tax. Were J.R. to a) become PP president (again) and b) Balearic president (again), he has said that the tourist tax will be the first folly of the Psoemespodemos pact to be ejected with great force into the blue waters of the Med.
The spirit of Jaume Matas would thus be restored, Jaume having taken the legislative knife to the little lamented ecotax in 2003. And in eliminating the tourist tax, J.R. would be having his symbolic retaliation against Psoemespodemos. One of its first acts was to consign the law of symbols to the symbolic junk heap of Castile-Catalan rivalry. The Catalan flag could once more flutter without fetter and fear of ferocious reprisals by anti-Catalanist fundamentalists. Would J.R. and his chums do the conga in the way that Psoemespodemos so embarrassingly did, having removed the symbols law from the statute book?
Well, he would have to be president and have some chums. And they, unfortunately for him, are in comparatively limited supply. But those that there are will be with him all the way at Es Moli d'es Comte, which is the finca pile hosting the PP congress. What a shame they couldn't have waited another week. They could have had their congress at a congress centre. More spirit of Matas would thus have been abroad, though given that the Palacio has now become something of a Psoemespodemos gig (hmm, maybe not Podemos), they would probably have decided otherwise.
Es Moli, from what I can make out (thanks to TripAdvisor), could do with all the PP-ists firing off some five-star reviews. It is ranked 1,487 out of 1,776 restaurants in Palma (de Mallorca). "The political debate was somewhat sterile, but we loved the cabbage rolls with sobrassada." Or whatever. Still, perhaps it's an appropriate gaff for the occasion and for the PP's Count Dracula. The mill of the count. Though for J.R. it may prove to be a millstone too far.
And one of the stones that he insists on dragging around with him is multi-language teaching. What more can he add to the list of teaching languages? What about Uzbek? There must be the odd tourist from Uzbekistan in desperate need of understanding why he must pay the tourist tax. Or how about Klingon? Much more of a laugh than English, that's for sure.
Teaching has been just one of the issues that the local Spanish (and Catalan) media has been dissecting in the lead-up to D-Day. There has been virtually no room for anything else, the photos vying for space with the analysis, the quotes, the interviews. And best of the photos was one for the favourite, Biel Company, There was Biel, surrounded by Biel's Babes, the males pushed to the periphery. And when one of the babes is Marga Prohens, one would have to feel that Biel has it in the bag. Who, let's face it, would knowingly vote against Marga.
In somewhat less frivolous fashion, Company has stated that J.R. is not a company man, as in there's no way he'll be giving J.R. a job if (when) he wins the election. Bauzá, attempting to appear all things to all (company) men and women in the party, has hinted that he might do otherwise were he to win. However, that would be unlikely. One of his parting shots last week was to say of Company that he (Bauzá) made him a minister, he (Bauzá) affiliated Company to the party. "Let each one draw his own conclusions about him." And it's true. He did make him a minister. Company wasn't a PP member as such. He became one later.
Denouement Day is thus highly personal. There may be more than one loser. The PP is threatened with being split in half. Or more like into one third and two thirds.
At some point today we will know who will be the new leader of the Partido Popular in the Balearics. I'll bet you can hardly wait to find out. And wait there has been. A very long one. Interminable. Well, not quite, as it terminates today, with one of the candidates due to be terminated. Which one? The bookies will be weeping if the long odds outsider J.R. Bauzá romps to victory. Others will be joining them. Catalanists will be wailing their woes and hurriedly reinstalling the garlic over their portals, lest Count Dracula should darken their doors once more.
Joy, though, might be unconfined in certain quarters: let's call them the hoteliers. J.R. has been going down - in all likelihood - with all guns blazing. One of them has been fired at the tourist tax. Were J.R. to a) become PP president (again) and b) Balearic president (again), he has said that the tourist tax will be the first folly of the Psoemespodemos pact to be ejected with great force into the blue waters of the Med.
The spirit of Jaume Matas would thus be restored, Jaume having taken the legislative knife to the little lamented ecotax in 2003. And in eliminating the tourist tax, J.R. would be having his symbolic retaliation against Psoemespodemos. One of its first acts was to consign the law of symbols to the symbolic junk heap of Castile-Catalan rivalry. The Catalan flag could once more flutter without fetter and fear of ferocious reprisals by anti-Catalanist fundamentalists. Would J.R. and his chums do the conga in the way that Psoemespodemos so embarrassingly did, having removed the symbols law from the statute book?
Well, he would have to be president and have some chums. And they, unfortunately for him, are in comparatively limited supply. But those that there are will be with him all the way at Es Moli d'es Comte, which is the finca pile hosting the PP congress. What a shame they couldn't have waited another week. They could have had their congress at a congress centre. More spirit of Matas would thus have been abroad, though given that the Palacio has now become something of a Psoemespodemos gig (hmm, maybe not Podemos), they would probably have decided otherwise.
Es Moli, from what I can make out (thanks to TripAdvisor), could do with all the PP-ists firing off some five-star reviews. It is ranked 1,487 out of 1,776 restaurants in Palma (de Mallorca). "The political debate was somewhat sterile, but we loved the cabbage rolls with sobrassada." Or whatever. Still, perhaps it's an appropriate gaff for the occasion and for the PP's Count Dracula. The mill of the count. Though for J.R. it may prove to be a millstone too far.
And one of the stones that he insists on dragging around with him is multi-language teaching. What more can he add to the list of teaching languages? What about Uzbek? There must be the odd tourist from Uzbekistan in desperate need of understanding why he must pay the tourist tax. Or how about Klingon? Much more of a laugh than English, that's for sure.
Teaching has been just one of the issues that the local Spanish (and Catalan) media has been dissecting in the lead-up to D-Day. There has been virtually no room for anything else, the photos vying for space with the analysis, the quotes, the interviews. And best of the photos was one for the favourite, Biel Company, There was Biel, surrounded by Biel's Babes, the males pushed to the periphery. And when one of the babes is Marga Prohens, one would have to feel that Biel has it in the bag. Who, let's face it, would knowingly vote against Marga.
In somewhat less frivolous fashion, Company has stated that J.R. is not a company man, as in there's no way he'll be giving J.R. a job if (when) he wins the election. Bauzá, attempting to appear all things to all (company) men and women in the party, has hinted that he might do otherwise were he to win. However, that would be unlikely. One of his parting shots last week was to say of Company that he (Bauzá) made him a minister, he (Bauzá) affiliated Company to the party. "Let each one draw his own conclusions about him." And it's true. He did make him a minister. Company wasn't a PP member as such. He became one later.
Denouement Day is thus highly personal. There may be more than one loser. The PP is threatened with being split in half. Or more like into one third and two thirds.
Tuesday, March 07, 2017
Waiting For TIL Mark Two
When the Partido Popular gets round to publishing its manifesto for the 2019 regional election, there will be more than just passing interest in what it has to say about education. Readers will be vastly more attentive than they were in 2011. Those readers who never read the 2011 manifesto.
Biel Company should beat José Ramón Bauzá and be elected as the party's president later this month. He will then be the party's candidate for the Balearic presidency. Bauzá, a fallen figure in search of some purpose greater than having been sidelined, condemned to a place in the Senate and widely ignored, is most unlikely to win. Stranger things have happened of course, but a Bauzá victory would be most strange.
Even before the party gathers for the congress at which the party's leadership will be decided, the issue which came to haunt the Bauzá administration is being given a thorough airing. This is mainly because it is Bauzá who is doing the airing. He said recently that "we (although it's not clear who we are) have been working with experts to find an appropriate and effective way to apply trilingual teaching (TIL)".
Was this an admission that the TIL he introduced was not appropriate and effective? Not that he has said as much, and nor will he ever do that. He admits to having made mistakes but has not specified what these were. There are many who will happily identify mistakes, the biggest of which was TIL.
Company is not ruling out TIL. He believes that it could be introduced by consensus, but only if there is an avoidance of ideological issues: maximum consensus without any imposition. He has stopped short of condemning Bauzá, but there's no disguising the reading between the lines. There were things that the last PP government did which made its defeat at the 2015 election all the more likely, and TIL was most definitely one of them.
Regardless of who is elected as leader, the 2019 election manifesto is certain to be more specific about trilingual teaching than the 2011 manifesto was. And that manifesto could not have been any less specific. It didn't mention TIL. What came to antagonise so many - and I include myself - was the blatant untruth that the electorate had voted for TIL because it was there in the manifesto. This untruth was then repeated by those who didn't bother to check. The "democratic will" card was played when in fact there was no card available: TIL as an election pledge was to become a fabrication.
The reference made by Company to imposition says it all. TIL was imposed - or imposition was attempted - as a thinly disguised means of downgrading Catalan. Once the "free selection" of teaching languages by parents - Catalan or Castellano - proved to be a failure, Bauzá introduced TIL. English was the patsy for an initiative that from the outset demonstrated education policy subnormality. That's because it wasn't used for educational purposes; only political ones. Had it been only for early primary and infant levels, then there would have been some sense. But this wasn't the case.
Bauzá now says that experts are assisting with a "new formula" for TIL. Where were those experts when he was president? Were they ever presented? Were they ever named? One person who was close to being an expert was Bauzá's "professor", his first education minister, Rafael Bosch. He had a background in education. When he came to appreciate the difficulties with TIL, he was ousted, branded a "Catalanist" and replaced by the inexperienced Joana Maria Camps, under whom the policy degenerated into protest and farce.
It was seemingly Bauzá who offered himself as the expert. Off he and Bosch went to Switzerland to see how multi-language education operates. As Switzerland is in any event a multi-language society, it was not representative of what he was seeking. But there was a question about his policy that was never truly raised and so given a satisfactory answer. Why was teaching in a foreign language felt to be so important?
Having a third language from the start of a pupil's education cycle should have benefits - one can see that - but what of countries where there are high levels and standards of English, where it isn't a teaching language per se: the likes of the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden? While there are instances of its use, it is more a case of it being integrated into school life and, especially in the Netherlands and Sweden, everyday life.
There is therefore a considerable societal difference in the Balearics, and it is this which needs addressing. Introducing English at a very early age may well assist, but doing so would require overcoming obstacles, not least some of the teaching community. Imposition isn't the way. If Bauzá is really a good educationalist, then he should have learned that lesson.
Biel Company should beat José Ramón Bauzá and be elected as the party's president later this month. He will then be the party's candidate for the Balearic presidency. Bauzá, a fallen figure in search of some purpose greater than having been sidelined, condemned to a place in the Senate and widely ignored, is most unlikely to win. Stranger things have happened of course, but a Bauzá victory would be most strange.
Even before the party gathers for the congress at which the party's leadership will be decided, the issue which came to haunt the Bauzá administration is being given a thorough airing. This is mainly because it is Bauzá who is doing the airing. He said recently that "we (although it's not clear who we are) have been working with experts to find an appropriate and effective way to apply trilingual teaching (TIL)".
Was this an admission that the TIL he introduced was not appropriate and effective? Not that he has said as much, and nor will he ever do that. He admits to having made mistakes but has not specified what these were. There are many who will happily identify mistakes, the biggest of which was TIL.
Company is not ruling out TIL. He believes that it could be introduced by consensus, but only if there is an avoidance of ideological issues: maximum consensus without any imposition. He has stopped short of condemning Bauzá, but there's no disguising the reading between the lines. There were things that the last PP government did which made its defeat at the 2015 election all the more likely, and TIL was most definitely one of them.
Regardless of who is elected as leader, the 2019 election manifesto is certain to be more specific about trilingual teaching than the 2011 manifesto was. And that manifesto could not have been any less specific. It didn't mention TIL. What came to antagonise so many - and I include myself - was the blatant untruth that the electorate had voted for TIL because it was there in the manifesto. This untruth was then repeated by those who didn't bother to check. The "democratic will" card was played when in fact there was no card available: TIL as an election pledge was to become a fabrication.
The reference made by Company to imposition says it all. TIL was imposed - or imposition was attempted - as a thinly disguised means of downgrading Catalan. Once the "free selection" of teaching languages by parents - Catalan or Castellano - proved to be a failure, Bauzá introduced TIL. English was the patsy for an initiative that from the outset demonstrated education policy subnormality. That's because it wasn't used for educational purposes; only political ones. Had it been only for early primary and infant levels, then there would have been some sense. But this wasn't the case.
Bauzá now says that experts are assisting with a "new formula" for TIL. Where were those experts when he was president? Were they ever presented? Were they ever named? One person who was close to being an expert was Bauzá's "professor", his first education minister, Rafael Bosch. He had a background in education. When he came to appreciate the difficulties with TIL, he was ousted, branded a "Catalanist" and replaced by the inexperienced Joana Maria Camps, under whom the policy degenerated into protest and farce.
It was seemingly Bauzá who offered himself as the expert. Off he and Bosch went to Switzerland to see how multi-language education operates. As Switzerland is in any event a multi-language society, it was not representative of what he was seeking. But there was a question about his policy that was never truly raised and so given a satisfactory answer. Why was teaching in a foreign language felt to be so important?
Having a third language from the start of a pupil's education cycle should have benefits - one can see that - but what of countries where there are high levels and standards of English, where it isn't a teaching language per se: the likes of the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden? While there are instances of its use, it is more a case of it being integrated into school life and, especially in the Netherlands and Sweden, everyday life.
There is therefore a considerable societal difference in the Balearics, and it is this which needs addressing. Introducing English at a very early age may well assist, but doing so would require overcoming obstacles, not least some of the teaching community. Imposition isn't the way. If Bauzá is really a good educationalist, then he should have learned that lesson.
Thursday, February 16, 2017
The Vogue For Bloodletting
Given all the shenanigans involving what one tires of being told are "anti-austerity newcomers" Podemos, it has been easy to overlook that pro-austerity oldsters, the Partido Popular, are lurking in the murky political undergrowth ready to pounce on the next unsuspecting electorate - in the Balearics, that is.
Away from the islands, and in the safety of The Land That Time Forgot, the PP's national hierarchy lumbers on, a giant staggering through a forest of political half-light, never turning the torches on the corpses that are strewn across its path or are buried in a court's archives. Seemingly immune to the convulsions and eruptions everywhere else, there is a serenity for the PP, capable as they are of closeting themselves within the contentment of another electoral job done (if only just) and of pulling down the shutters to avoid the inward glares into their Jurassic lair.
The PP were forgotten at the weekend. This was not how Pablo Iglesias had intended it. The Podemos knockout to decide a winner was duly timed to coincide with the PP who were gathering only a short distance away. But because everyone was interested only in the left and even more left hooks being delivered by Errejón and Iglesias, no one took any notice of the PP. Podemos were a show, a spectacular, a political prime-time reality broadcast played out in the real-time of up-to-the second voting intentions. Time had indeed forgotten the PP. Their dullness in this post-modern political world of citizen online councils, speakers with piercings and a long mane of hair tied up in a sort of bun, and election brochures stolen from Ikea is the very thing which sustains them. They seem otherworldly, of another and former time.
Iglesias had hoped that having the two congresses at the same time would enable the citizens to draw comparisons. If the citizens did do this, then the comparison would have been between a tetchy bunch of upstart Herberts and the grim familiarity of Mariano Rajoy. In a world of convulsions there is something to be said for a leader who sports a tie, is attended to by a barber with a certain degree of frequency and can at least attempt to converse with Trump.
The cosiness of the PP's gathering was such that controversy was a distant cousin, one for the sentencing of "caso Gürtel" and for the machinations across the sea in the Balearics. And it is here in the Balearics that the national hierarchy would much prefer that a son, who at one time - now long ago - had been looked upon with benevolent, austere goodwill, would quietly disappear. But the hierarchy is not alone in having been confounded, nay startled by the sheer persistence of he who refuses to lie down - José Ramón Bauzá.
We did all rather chortle when Bauzá made it known that he was intending to attempt to once more become president of the party. There is still some chortling, but as the time moves nearer for a regional congress at least a year overdue, there is Bauzá, steadfast in his belief that he can return as the re-conquering hero of the Balearic PP. Never mind that he did his best, and mainly succeeded, in delivering a sharp instrument into the heart of Balearic society and much of his own party; he seems convinced that all that will be forgiven.
The show that the Balearic PP are planning will be bloodletting on a scale that is biblical in its abundance compared with the streams that washed across the feet of Errejón and Iglesias in Madrid last weekend. The long-time favourite to become the party's new president, Biel Company, should win in the kind of canter suited to a man with his agricultural leanings. But Bauzá has pulled two agrarians out of the hat who are his latest cheerleaders. One says that Bauzá was the best president that the Balearics has had. Both are one-time friends of Company but they no longer share company.
Company was once a friend of Bauzá's, too. It was Bauzá who made him environment and agriculture minister, but it was Company who helped to deliver the knife. Hauling in agrarians is Bauzá's way of showing he's every bit a man of conservative, farming sod as Company is.
Bauzá was aghast to see that Company had surrounded himself with members of the hierarchy at the PP congress in Madrid. Here was affirmation of what Madrid hopes for and which the temporary leader of the PP in the Balearics, Miquel Vidal, also hopes for - a single candidate who can pull the factions together. There is little chance, not while Bauzá continues along a path that may result in a humiliation greater than the defeat of the PP he presided over two years ago.
Away from the islands, and in the safety of The Land That Time Forgot, the PP's national hierarchy lumbers on, a giant staggering through a forest of political half-light, never turning the torches on the corpses that are strewn across its path or are buried in a court's archives. Seemingly immune to the convulsions and eruptions everywhere else, there is a serenity for the PP, capable as they are of closeting themselves within the contentment of another electoral job done (if only just) and of pulling down the shutters to avoid the inward glares into their Jurassic lair.
The PP were forgotten at the weekend. This was not how Pablo Iglesias had intended it. The Podemos knockout to decide a winner was duly timed to coincide with the PP who were gathering only a short distance away. But because everyone was interested only in the left and even more left hooks being delivered by Errejón and Iglesias, no one took any notice of the PP. Podemos were a show, a spectacular, a political prime-time reality broadcast played out in the real-time of up-to-the second voting intentions. Time had indeed forgotten the PP. Their dullness in this post-modern political world of citizen online councils, speakers with piercings and a long mane of hair tied up in a sort of bun, and election brochures stolen from Ikea is the very thing which sustains them. They seem otherworldly, of another and former time.
Iglesias had hoped that having the two congresses at the same time would enable the citizens to draw comparisons. If the citizens did do this, then the comparison would have been between a tetchy bunch of upstart Herberts and the grim familiarity of Mariano Rajoy. In a world of convulsions there is something to be said for a leader who sports a tie, is attended to by a barber with a certain degree of frequency and can at least attempt to converse with Trump.
The cosiness of the PP's gathering was such that controversy was a distant cousin, one for the sentencing of "caso Gürtel" and for the machinations across the sea in the Balearics. And it is here in the Balearics that the national hierarchy would much prefer that a son, who at one time - now long ago - had been looked upon with benevolent, austere goodwill, would quietly disappear. But the hierarchy is not alone in having been confounded, nay startled by the sheer persistence of he who refuses to lie down - José Ramón Bauzá.
We did all rather chortle when Bauzá made it known that he was intending to attempt to once more become president of the party. There is still some chortling, but as the time moves nearer for a regional congress at least a year overdue, there is Bauzá, steadfast in his belief that he can return as the re-conquering hero of the Balearic PP. Never mind that he did his best, and mainly succeeded, in delivering a sharp instrument into the heart of Balearic society and much of his own party; he seems convinced that all that will be forgiven.
The show that the Balearic PP are planning will be bloodletting on a scale that is biblical in its abundance compared with the streams that washed across the feet of Errejón and Iglesias in Madrid last weekend. The long-time favourite to become the party's new president, Biel Company, should win in the kind of canter suited to a man with his agricultural leanings. But Bauzá has pulled two agrarians out of the hat who are his latest cheerleaders. One says that Bauzá was the best president that the Balearics has had. Both are one-time friends of Company but they no longer share company.
Company was once a friend of Bauzá's, too. It was Bauzá who made him environment and agriculture minister, but it was Company who helped to deliver the knife. Hauling in agrarians is Bauzá's way of showing he's every bit a man of conservative, farming sod as Company is.
Bauzá was aghast to see that Company had surrounded himself with members of the hierarchy at the PP congress in Madrid. Here was affirmation of what Madrid hopes for and which the temporary leader of the PP in the Balearics, Miquel Vidal, also hopes for - a single candidate who can pull the factions together. There is little chance, not while Bauzá continues along a path that may result in a humiliation greater than the defeat of the PP he presided over two years ago.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Twits Of Twitter: Partido Popular
If your party suffers a calamitous election defeat, it is to be expected that there will be a period of bloodletting. Calm, rational review rarely follows calamity. Instead, knives are sharpened, bodies are left. From fractiousness come factions, fighting over the bones of a disintegrated entity. Putting the monster back together again takes time. The wounds are too profound for there to be rapid reparatory surgery.
Nevertheless, if Mariano Rajoy and central office had allowed otherwise, the Partido Popular in the Balearics might now be on the path to recovery. Central office did not allow. The regional party would have to wait until the PP nationally was subjected to its own calamitous humiliation. Only then would the Balearics PP be permitted to cleanse itself of the soiling of its factionalism, to definitively wave its dirty underwear for public view, to get it out of the way, to elect a new leader.
That might have been the theory, but as the general election of 20-D increasingly appears to have heralded another election (26-J in all likelihood), the practice has proved to be different. The PP in the Balearics is still in leadership limbo, unable to move on. When might it be allowed to have its regional congress and elect its leader? Who can say?
It is now getting on for a year since José Ramón Bauzá's PP suffered defeat by the fourteen cuts of seats that it lost in the Balearic parliament. No sooner was it dawning on the party that it had just suffered its worst ever election performance than the battle lines were being drawn and the trenches dug. A phony war prior to the election - former PP mayors, such as those of Alaro and Pollensa, had already jumped ship and abandoned the autocratic Bauzá - became total war, and at the head of the rebel troops was the environment and agriculture minister, Biel Company.
At one time it had appeared as if Company was likely to get a clear run at being the party's next leader. But with the special congress delayed and delayed, there has been ample time for the factions - far from simmering down - to become more and more agitated. And among the agitators has been Bauzá. Far from having accepted being exiled to the Senate with his tail between his legs, he has been doing his best to stir things. His charge that the party lacked direction did not go down well, the implication of this having been that it was not going in the direction that he had taken it.
Modern party warfare now plays out on different fields of battle, one of these being social media. And it has been on Twitter and Facebook where the Company and Bauzá factions have been engaged in skirmishes. At the heart of this were messages on both networks from one Pilar Bauzá Díaz. She had, for instance, placed the blame for the loss of PP votes on the former president, while exchanging views with, among others, the former director of Balearic ports and airports, Antonio Deudero (a Bauzá man). She also praised the work of Biel Company - "the best agriculture minister of all time".
It might be noted that José Ramón's full name is Bauzá Díaz. But Pilar of that name was unrelated to him. She was in fact Company's wife. Her fake account was exposed when she, by error, used her own name. So against this background, Company laid into Bauzá at a PP general meeting last week. If he, the former president, was going after him (Company), then he would go after Bauzá. Company was furious at what he saw as a deliberate leaking of these social media exchanges by Bauzá's personal secretary in the Senate to the mainstream media. The only problem being of course that it was all out there in the public domain anyway, and his wife had mistakenly blown her own trolling cover.
The general secretary of the PP, the party's nominal and temporary leader, Miquel Vidal, has sought to draw a line under the affair. No action will be taken, and it's being put down to the fact that people get "angry" from time to time, and that it was all an "internal" matter. Which may be fair enough, but Company, adding that he will neither forgive nor forget the supposed leak, has suffered - one would have to think - a great deal of damage. You would also have to think that he was aware of his wife's fake account (for which he did apologise).
The time that it is taking in getting around to elect a new leader is only making matters worse for the PP, and this twittish use of Twitter highlights the fact. When they do finally get round to an election, the matter will not be ignored. Meanwhile, and as the PP tears itself apart, it's supposed to be the main opposition.
Nevertheless, if Mariano Rajoy and central office had allowed otherwise, the Partido Popular in the Balearics might now be on the path to recovery. Central office did not allow. The regional party would have to wait until the PP nationally was subjected to its own calamitous humiliation. Only then would the Balearics PP be permitted to cleanse itself of the soiling of its factionalism, to definitively wave its dirty underwear for public view, to get it out of the way, to elect a new leader.
That might have been the theory, but as the general election of 20-D increasingly appears to have heralded another election (26-J in all likelihood), the practice has proved to be different. The PP in the Balearics is still in leadership limbo, unable to move on. When might it be allowed to have its regional congress and elect its leader? Who can say?
It is now getting on for a year since José Ramón Bauzá's PP suffered defeat by the fourteen cuts of seats that it lost in the Balearic parliament. No sooner was it dawning on the party that it had just suffered its worst ever election performance than the battle lines were being drawn and the trenches dug. A phony war prior to the election - former PP mayors, such as those of Alaro and Pollensa, had already jumped ship and abandoned the autocratic Bauzá - became total war, and at the head of the rebel troops was the environment and agriculture minister, Biel Company.
At one time it had appeared as if Company was likely to get a clear run at being the party's next leader. But with the special congress delayed and delayed, there has been ample time for the factions - far from simmering down - to become more and more agitated. And among the agitators has been Bauzá. Far from having accepted being exiled to the Senate with his tail between his legs, he has been doing his best to stir things. His charge that the party lacked direction did not go down well, the implication of this having been that it was not going in the direction that he had taken it.
Modern party warfare now plays out on different fields of battle, one of these being social media. And it has been on Twitter and Facebook where the Company and Bauzá factions have been engaged in skirmishes. At the heart of this were messages on both networks from one Pilar Bauzá Díaz. She had, for instance, placed the blame for the loss of PP votes on the former president, while exchanging views with, among others, the former director of Balearic ports and airports, Antonio Deudero (a Bauzá man). She also praised the work of Biel Company - "the best agriculture minister of all time".
It might be noted that José Ramón's full name is Bauzá Díaz. But Pilar of that name was unrelated to him. She was in fact Company's wife. Her fake account was exposed when she, by error, used her own name. So against this background, Company laid into Bauzá at a PP general meeting last week. If he, the former president, was going after him (Company), then he would go after Bauzá. Company was furious at what he saw as a deliberate leaking of these social media exchanges by Bauzá's personal secretary in the Senate to the mainstream media. The only problem being of course that it was all out there in the public domain anyway, and his wife had mistakenly blown her own trolling cover.
The general secretary of the PP, the party's nominal and temporary leader, Miquel Vidal, has sought to draw a line under the affair. No action will be taken, and it's being put down to the fact that people get "angry" from time to time, and that it was all an "internal" matter. Which may be fair enough, but Company, adding that he will neither forgive nor forget the supposed leak, has suffered - one would have to think - a great deal of damage. You would also have to think that he was aware of his wife's fake account (for which he did apologise).
The time that it is taking in getting around to elect a new leader is only making matters worse for the PP, and this twittish use of Twitter highlights the fact. When they do finally get round to an election, the matter will not be ignored. Meanwhile, and as the PP tears itself apart, it's supposed to be the main opposition.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
In Too Deep?: The minister for diving
I feel sorry for Rafael Bosch. It can't be easy being named after a German electrical-goods manufacturer and so having an appellation which suggests that you should be organised, highly efficient and run on time. It becomes even less easy when you manage to make a Bosch botch of things.
Bosch is the Balearics education and culture minister. He also has the dubious honour of being the government's spokesperson, meaning that he is the government's patsy, its fall guy. Whenever he is wheeled out in front of the press, he is left exposed while Count Dracula, the president, lurks in his lair, licking the blood of his innocent colleague-victim and smirking at his misfortune and squirming embarrassment.
Bosch is the government's Explanationfinder-General, its justifier, its spinner. Nice Sr. Bosch, forever cast in the role of governmental moderate, the pleasant, acceptable face of Balearics capitalism and policy-making, thrown to the media wolves as Bauzá sinks his fangs into whatever cut he can make, as the vice-president and finance minister Aguiló emerges periodically from the darkness to issue further edicts of ever more outrageous tax-raising, and as the tourism minister Delgado scurries and scuttles between and in and out of skirting-boards, popping his head out now and then before disappearing for months on end.
The spokesperson duties have been coming thick and fast for Sr. Bosch, and in performing them it hasn't always been certain that he has been on-message. The government's withdrawal from the Ramon Llull Institute was apparently for financial reasons, or so Bauzá had implied. Bosch has said it was for political reasons, which is what everyone knew to be the case.
He finds himself in the midst of a Partido Popular media storm, new corruption allegations attaching themselves to the mayor of Inca, Rafael Torres, the speaker of the Balearic parliament, Pere Rotger, and the former and briefly secretary of the party, José María Rodríguez. This is scandal in the good, old-fashioned tradition of political scandal in the Balearics, but Bosch, normally used to commenting on news in that he tries and explains what on earth the government is up to, now finds that he is the news and in the midst of a media storm as great if not greater than that closing in on the PP because of the corruption accusations.
Bosch and the minister for the environment, Biel Company, have both been found to have been making summer visits to the island of Cabrera. In themselves, these visits are absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. However, both ministers are being accused of having made private trips using public funds. To make matters worse, there are suggestions of gorging on lobster and washing it down with Moët, all at the taxpayer's expense. Bosch has said that his trips were for educational purposes, and he has been seen diving in the waters around Cabrera apparently as part of putting together an educational video.
Unfortunately for Bosch, no one much is buying his explanation. There has never been, or so it would seem, any budget for the making of this video. Bosch has said that he has been looking for a sponsor, which is odd for an education minister who was meant to be undertaking a trip for educational purposes. And as the story unfolds and the clouds of the media storm darken, more is emerging, for example the fact that two public employees had to be paid for overtime while accompanying Bosch and Company. This - the overtime - is not in line with Bauzá austerity policy.
The president, not entirely out of the woods because of the supposed incompatibility of his business affairs, hasn't exactly been rushing to voice his support for Bosch, who is therefore increasingly being cast adrift. One could understand if Bosch, who has to defend government policies, might feel slightly let down. But the Bauzá presidency is of course all about clean politics, which is why there are corruption allegations surrounding individuals associated with the current administration.
This is a government fast giving the impression of drowning. Bosch is one of the more likable figures in government, Company the most popular minister (according to a recent poll anyway). Yet here they are, embroiled in a ridiculous affair coming on top of the corruption allegations, the president's own embarrassment over his business affairs and the loss of two health ministers in under four months.
The resignation of both ministers has been called for in certain quarters. Either or both may yet decide to resign, even if the affair is relatively minor in the scale of things. Bosch may not be in so deep that he can't escape the consequences of his watery hole. Or maybe he is simply out of his depth. Sadly, he wouldn't be the only one.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Bosch is the Balearics education and culture minister. He also has the dubious honour of being the government's spokesperson, meaning that he is the government's patsy, its fall guy. Whenever he is wheeled out in front of the press, he is left exposed while Count Dracula, the president, lurks in his lair, licking the blood of his innocent colleague-victim and smirking at his misfortune and squirming embarrassment.
Bosch is the government's Explanationfinder-General, its justifier, its spinner. Nice Sr. Bosch, forever cast in the role of governmental moderate, the pleasant, acceptable face of Balearics capitalism and policy-making, thrown to the media wolves as Bauzá sinks his fangs into whatever cut he can make, as the vice-president and finance minister Aguiló emerges periodically from the darkness to issue further edicts of ever more outrageous tax-raising, and as the tourism minister Delgado scurries and scuttles between and in and out of skirting-boards, popping his head out now and then before disappearing for months on end.
The spokesperson duties have been coming thick and fast for Sr. Bosch, and in performing them it hasn't always been certain that he has been on-message. The government's withdrawal from the Ramon Llull Institute was apparently for financial reasons, or so Bauzá had implied. Bosch has said it was for political reasons, which is what everyone knew to be the case.
He finds himself in the midst of a Partido Popular media storm, new corruption allegations attaching themselves to the mayor of Inca, Rafael Torres, the speaker of the Balearic parliament, Pere Rotger, and the former and briefly secretary of the party, José María Rodríguez. This is scandal in the good, old-fashioned tradition of political scandal in the Balearics, but Bosch, normally used to commenting on news in that he tries and explains what on earth the government is up to, now finds that he is the news and in the midst of a media storm as great if not greater than that closing in on the PP because of the corruption accusations.
Bosch and the minister for the environment, Biel Company, have both been found to have been making summer visits to the island of Cabrera. In themselves, these visits are absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. However, both ministers are being accused of having made private trips using public funds. To make matters worse, there are suggestions of gorging on lobster and washing it down with Moët, all at the taxpayer's expense. Bosch has said that his trips were for educational purposes, and he has been seen diving in the waters around Cabrera apparently as part of putting together an educational video.
Unfortunately for Bosch, no one much is buying his explanation. There has never been, or so it would seem, any budget for the making of this video. Bosch has said that he has been looking for a sponsor, which is odd for an education minister who was meant to be undertaking a trip for educational purposes. And as the story unfolds and the clouds of the media storm darken, more is emerging, for example the fact that two public employees had to be paid for overtime while accompanying Bosch and Company. This - the overtime - is not in line with Bauzá austerity policy.
The president, not entirely out of the woods because of the supposed incompatibility of his business affairs, hasn't exactly been rushing to voice his support for Bosch, who is therefore increasingly being cast adrift. One could understand if Bosch, who has to defend government policies, might feel slightly let down. But the Bauzá presidency is of course all about clean politics, which is why there are corruption allegations surrounding individuals associated with the current administration.
This is a government fast giving the impression of drowning. Bosch is one of the more likable figures in government, Company the most popular minister (according to a recent poll anyway). Yet here they are, embroiled in a ridiculous affair coming on top of the corruption allegations, the president's own embarrassment over his business affairs and the loss of two health ministers in under four months.
The resignation of both ministers has been called for in certain quarters. Either or both may yet decide to resign, even if the affair is relatively minor in the scale of things. Bosch may not be in so deep that he can't escape the consequences of his watery hole. Or maybe he is simply out of his depth. Sadly, he wouldn't be the only one.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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