The
trick of being a Briton living in Spain is not to despair when looking at the
political news in either country.
Despair is a perfectly reasonable response to the savage self-mutilation of the Conservative party, lashing out at itself at the expense of the country that it is supposed to be governing. While, in Spain, the inability of so-called left wing political parties to form a new government to try and stop the haemorrhaging of any residual respect for a totally corrupt old political class is hardly an inspiring sight.
In neither country has a majority of the population voted for the rubbish that is parading itself as a government, but the oppositions in both countries have also shown themselves to be woefully inept at combining to change a disgraceful situation.
Despair is a perfectly reasonable response to the savage self-mutilation of the Conservative party, lashing out at itself at the expense of the country that it is supposed to be governing. While, in Spain, the inability of so-called left wing political parties to form a new government to try and stop the haemorrhaging of any residual respect for a totally corrupt old political class is hardly an inspiring sight.
In neither country has a majority of the population voted for the rubbish that is parading itself as a government, but the oppositions in both countries have also shown themselves to be woefully inept at combining to change a disgraceful situation.
I read, with increasing horror, the way that the
Conservatives in Britain are destroying the National Health Service. Their high handed and duplicitous approach to
an institution that they did all in their power to strangle at birth when it
was founded, is depressing but entirely expected given their past history.
Education, under Ms Morgan (or should I say Gideon, because
he is the one who seems to be announcing educational policy nowadays) is headed
towards disaster, with teachers becoming more and more disillusioned with the
profession.
The support for Brexit speaks for itself, especially the
collection of freaks on the Conservative side that speak out for it. The referendum exists solely to keep Cameron
in a job, as it was his panicked response to the rise of Ukip and has
absolutely nothing to do with democracy or morality or belief, simply to do
with political survival. However, even
Cameron’s selfishness pales into insignificance when compared with the
incandescent self-absorption of The Boris, our own unconvincing and vapid
British take on The Donald. And these,
and even lower life forms, pretend to govern us!
God help!
Which He certainly hasn’t done when it comes to Spain.
The failure of the political elite (I use the phrase very, very loosely) to form a government is, in my view, a disaster. I fear that Spain is, at the moment, an inherently conservative country and, in spite of the fact that PP (the Conservative party) has been shown to be systemically corrupt and little less than an elected kelptocracy, making themselves rich at the public expense, at least a third of the voting population will put their cross next to a party that will continue to rip them off.
The failure of the political elite (I use the phrase very, very loosely) to form a government is, in my view, a disaster. I fear that Spain is, at the moment, an inherently conservative country and, in spite of the fact that PP (the Conservative party) has been shown to be systemically corrupt and little less than an elected kelptocracy, making themselves rich at the public expense, at least a third of the voting population will put their cross next to a party that will continue to rip them off.
The vulgarity of the criminality of PP is too extensive to
document in a single blog, but simply Google ‘PP corruption' And see what you
come up with! And no one resigns, in
spite of overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing.
The system in this country has been set up, or has developed to the
extent that justice is not a concept that has anything like the respect that it
deserves.
There are whole swathes of society in this country that are
‘above’ the law or have a privileged position.
Judges are political appointments and they display astonishing
partiality. Political parties have far
too much power and, bear in mind there is no transparency law in Spain!
We are to have a new election and the polls tell us that
the basic situation is not going to change with the parties getting much the
same proportion of the vote with PP increasing (sic!) its share, C’s increasing
its, PSOE and Podemos dropping support.
That is difficult to understand and is totally depressing.
In my view, anyone who votes for PP, knowing the range and
extent of corruption that is a key element in their existence, is doing a grave
disservice to Spain.
Anyone who votes for C’s is taking style for substance and
ignoring the fact that the only real guiding principle of the party is the
acquisition of power, especially by the photogenic leader.
Anyone who votes for PSOE is wilfully ignoring the fact
that the failure of a government of change to keep Rajoy (aka Bromo) out should
be squarely placed at its door. Ideally,
the leader of PSOE should resign for his total political ineptitude, but I
recognize that it is impossible at this stage in an election.
So, for me, Podemos and the parties of the real left are
the only real alternative for the country; and it looks as though the country
is not going to agree with me and they will vote for the tired, corrupt and
inept.
I confidently expect that the elections will, eventually,
give this country another right wing government and that will be the result
which will galvanize the independence movements in The Basque Country and
Catalonia and lead eventually to the break up of Spain.
It is therefore with something like relief that I turn to
my OU studies, the editing of an anthology of our poetry group, and the writing
of the content of my next book of poems.
Never let it be said that the arts could not soften the horror of
political life!
And the sun is shining!