People behaving badly

Even though I knew that it was going to happen, I am still sick to my stomach that the leader of a systemically corrupt party that blatantly parades its criminality has been re-elected to continue its grasping misgovernment of Spain for another four years. 

It is in place, not because it won a majority of the votes in the country, but rather because of an unholy alliance between its worthless self and the New Right in form of the laughingly termed Citizens’ Party, the Cs.  Even this combination of the right was insufficient to give it a majority and so it has relied on the Socialists to implode and give it a numerical majority in the parliamentary vote by abstaining.

I should point out that there were 15 members of the ‘socialist’ party of PSOE who had enough self-respect to ignore the questionable shenanigans which led to the resignation of the leader and his replacement with some sort of committee which then negotiated some sort of shameful submission via strategic abstention which has created this worthless minority government.

This is a holiday period when the eating of horsechestnuts, the drinking of sweet white wine and the consumption of pine nut encrusted cakes is obligatory.  The happiness of a convivial family occasion was soured by the shameful spectacle of a group of ‘left-wing’ elected representatives signally failing to do their duty or even to be true to the basic tenets of their political affiliation.

 There is nothing worse than listening to a group of politicians who are clearly far more interested in their own political survival than anything to do with the well being of the country that they have been elected to serve. 

It is painfully clear, and has become even more so as the months have passed and the left failed to make the alliances that would have secured a progressive government, that the ‘socialists’ are far more worried about a government that might reveal the depths of their own incompetence and corruption, or even worse, might force an election in which even more of their number might find themselves without a cosy place in parliament, than any concern they might have about the quality of government they were allowing to form itself after their abnegation of responsibility.  (You have to say that last sentence all in one breath and through gritted teeth!)

PSOE cannot afford to have an election before the four years of this government’s allotted span has been passed and they might have had time to lick their wounds and present a more wholesome picture of themselves towards a doubting electorate.  If they ‘try and hold the government to account’ all PP have to do is threaten an election, and PSOE will scuttle back into supine acquiescence to the Conservative government’s will, terrified of the consequences of their past actions being put to a frankly cynical electorate.

I have absolutely no confidence that PSOE will push forward a reforming parliament and every confidence that they will continue to show the moral cowardice that has resulted in a minority PP regime, again.

As far as I am concerned, the real and moral opposition to the sick triple alliance of PP, Cs and PSOE (with 15 honourable exceptions) is Podemos.  And I further hope that they will take the initiative and show up the paucity of political will that characterises PSOE.  It will also be an opportunity for Cs to put up or shut up after all their talk of transparency and fighting corruption.

I have set the bar so low with the present government that they will have to do very little indeed to gain some grudging approbation from me: allow all the court cases which have seen swathes of PP in court to answer charges; allow the court case against the Infanta and her grasping husband; let all the other PP corruption cases work their way unfettered through the courts; expel corrupt PP politicians and allow past PP politicians to be charged with the crimes with which they have been accused; remove the totally unfair exemptions for certain people from the rigour of the justice system; bring in new transparency laws – that will do for starters.  I might add that getting rid of a seditious minister should be something of a priority, but this government doesn’t think so.  Which, of course, doesn’t really bode well for what they are going to do now and in the future.

Writing about anything else on an evening when so sad an act of political and moral cowardice has been slowly acted out on our television would be inappropriate.  But, as there is every likelihood that we will have to live with the consequences for four long years, there will plenty of time to dredge what positive I can from what looks like a truly depressing political situation and to find solace in other more positive aspects of Spanish and Catalan life.

A sad, bad man

The referendum has come and gone.  The Spanish elections have come and gone.  My response in both cases has been to write poetry and feel thoroughly depressed – something of a literary tradition in times of sadness.  But, there are limits to what even the sublimity of poetry can achieve.  In these cases it is only the rough workaday utility of prose that suffices.

            Boris Johnson (one of the Four Donkey Drivers of the Apocalypse) has declined to be one of the candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party and the next (God Help Us) Prime Minister.

            I can think of no explanation for his action which reflects anything but badly on him. 

Let us consider the possibilities.

1              Cowardice

Having seen the state of social, political, financial and cultural crisis that his opportunistic and selfish leadership role in the Leave Campaign has delivered to the British people, Bumbling Boris has a clear case of what I am sure he would term, ‘funk’.  He has no intention of accepting responsibility for the chaos that he has caused (why should he?  The philandering liar has no history of doing anything like that) and has offloaded the messy situation for somebody else to deal with.

2              Opportunism

Having decided that there is no personal advantage to be gained by doing the hard work of overturning or mitigating the disaster he has helped cause, he will now bide his time and assiduously work on the myth of ‘The Greatest Prime Minister We Never Had’ and, when the dust has settled and the level of British misery has reached its nadir, Boris can then poke his stylish writing above the parliamentary parapet, wave his illusory political credentials in the Westminster air and shyly shuffle into the limelight that he will have switched on for the occasion.

3              Consolation Prize Status

After taking a leaf out of Cameron’s “I am an abject failure but I am also capable of a pretence of dignity in a self-made defeat” Boris’s chummy statement (which is the equivalent of “It’s a fair cop!”) is an obvious plea for a senior position in the next government.  No Prime Minister in their right mind would want a lazy deadweight like Boris in a real parliamentary role, but the Blue Rinse Hero Worshippers might force his participation, by sheer unthinking adulation, into some meaningless political role.

4              Going back to his real job

No one can accuse Boris of being a competent Mayor of London or MP, but he is a fluent writer.  Perhaps he has realized that being in a situation where he would actually have to turn up on time and do some real work would interfere intolerably with where his real money making opportunities are found: in writing, public appearances and dangling from photo opportunity zip-wires.

5              Deception

It is much more than fair to argue that Boris has done nothing more than he has always done: let people down.  There is only room for one person in Boris’s life and that is Boris himself.  He did pretend over the last few months that he had the interests of the British people at heart, but nothing in his previous career would justify believing him, so, in a way, the heading of this section should be ‘self-deception’ – not by Boris (he, after all thought he knew exactly what he was doing) but by those who actually fooled themselves that they might have a micro space in a totally exclusive ego.

6              Lying

Perhaps it is almost like the last category, but there has to be a separate category to epitomize the character of the charlatan.  He was and is a liar.  He entered the referendum after writing a Brexit and an Remain piece for his highly paid column and then chose the Brexit.  After, we are told, a great amount of heart searching.  Liar!  Why is anything other that mendacity expected from a serial liar?  So, at the end, even his assertion that “I will [ . . . ] give every possible support to the next Conservative administration” can be thought of in terms of how much support he gave his pal Cameron.  Liar!  Once a liar always a liar.  It is my belief that given time and space Boris can, almost in his own words, “win and be better and more wonderful and, yes, a greater liar than ever before.”

Boris is a contemptible person.  He is an opportunistic politician.  He is a disaster.  He is a coward and shirker.

There is one thing that he can do to partially redeem himself.  Apologise.  Give a humble, sincere and abject apology.  Then resign from public life and all public offices.

What chance is there of that?