Thanks
to today's El
País,
the Spanish - as well as we guirris
– can now slaver over the details of the black payments made to
senior officials of the governing PP party. At least between 1997 and
2008. These include 25k euros a year paid to the current president –
Mariano Rajoy – and a couple of lump-sum payments to the previous
PP president, José Maria Aznar. For his daughter's wedding maybe.
Perhaps now we can begin to see why there've been no assertions
along the lines “We will root out all corruption and prosecute all
those implicated.”
After
reading all about the payments, I took to wondering about the
interviews between the party Treasurer and those PP politicians who
reached its cúpola:-
Well,
congratulations on rising to the most senior level of the party.
Thank-you.
I
know you're here for the good of the country, given that someone of
your ability would earn a lot more in the real world.
Well,
yes, indeed.
But
I've got some good news for you; we give you an additional salary,
financed by development companies to whom we're particular close.
Oh,
that is good news.
Yes,
but this is totally between me and you. And should it ever come up,
you have to deny it vehemently and insist you've never received
anything. As I will, of course. [Unless I'm ever implicated in any
corruption and the party doesn't back me. In which case I'll blow the
gaffe and issue copies of my handwritten book entries to the
opposition newspaper El País.]
I
understand.
As
I say, we can now see just why there've been no assertions that the
PP party will investigate corruption, root it out and punish everyone
involved. It would a death sentence. More accurately suicide. Which
is what we suspected, though we never expected to have the evidence
so soon. I guess the next PP defence will be that the accounts are
totally false and all written in the last two weeks by an angry
ex-Treasurer with too much time on his hands.
But,
anyway, you
can imagine, against this background, the reaction of foreign
residents to a new law which seems primarily designed to sucker
foreigners into a minimum 10k euro fine for non-payment of new taxes
on global wealth they knew nothing about. This is another –
possibly illegal - measure which stinks of the expediency for which
Spanish administrations – local, regional and national – are
famous. Most evidently with the demolition of 'illegal' foreigners'
housing in the South. Bugger the long-term consequences. Let's go for
the money today. And if we can't get a few big ones, let's go for a
lot of little ones who don't have the vote.
Finally
. . . Spanish numbers. The night train from Pontevedra to Madrid
originates in the former and departs at 21.28. Having passed through
one station twice, it rolls into Madrid at 8.02 the next morning. For
the life of me (again), I can't understand why it doesn't leave at
21.30 and arrive at 8.00. Or 8.10 even, if your antihistamine works
too well and you have to be woken up by the guard. By the way, it's a
great feeling being the very last person off the train, by some way.
You feel as if the train has made the journey just for you.
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