Gallardón The Moderate

When Mariano Rajoy announced his new government in December there were some who chose to see it as a selection of moderate, almost technocratic, ministers. The reality is that Mariano made his ministerial choices on the basis of loyalty to Mariano above all other considerations; apart from the now obligatory inclusion in a senior position of a banker. Only two months later, the idea that this is a moderate administration is already very difficult to sustain. Take the case of the justice minister, Alberto Ruiz Gallardón. As mayor of Madrid he was of course rightly famous for having bankrupted the city and for having won a gold medal for failed Olympic bids. But he was also seen as a centrist politician capable of reaching out to those voters who disliked the fundamentalist, taliban wing of the Partido Popular. 

The trick worked well for quite a few years, but it was just a trick. Gallardón's mask started to slip before he made the leap to national politics, the papal visit last summer saw him enthusiastically joining the competition to hand over as much of Madrid as possible to the Pope and his pilgrims. Now installed as a minister, it is Gallardón who will steer through what promises to be a thoroughly reactionary abortion law reform. Quite possibly taking us back to the position of the 1980's when women wanting an abortion and health professionals could never be absolutely sure that what they were doing was legal. Just the sort of precarious ambiguity that suits the PP on issues like this. 

Gallardón, who has never hidden his ambition to lead the PP and who prospered under the patronage of eminent Franco-democrat Manuel Fraga, is now perhaps more concerned about winning over those still to his right. So, yesterday, it was Gallardón who led the charge in defence of the brutal police violence we have seen in Valencia in the last few days. Fully equipped riot police beating up school kids has led to some shocking scenes, but the moderate Gallardón sees none of this. Instead he would have us believe, alongside the ever more servile right-wing press, that it is all the work of anti-system radicals intent on attacking the police. Oddly enough, as the riot police were withdrawn yesterday, there was an outbreak of entirely peaceful protest in Valencia. It's almost a perfect portrait of the way that region is being run, kids and their parents who protest about having no heating in their schools get beaten by riot cops whilst the corrupt political leadership who don't pay the heating bills continue to go peacefully about their business. 

It's fairly clear that the new government has let the police off the leash in dealing with any protests against the severe cutbacks being implemented by Rajoy's administration. In Madrid Esperanza Aguirre was threatening to form her own regional police force last year, as the then PSOE administration refused her repeated requests to crack heads in the Puerta del Sol. In compensation for not getting her own private police force (a truly frightening prospect), she instead got one of her people installed as the Delegada del Gobierno in Madrid, the government's local representative. The change is already being noted with the police putting any meetings of the 15M movement held in the Puerta del Sol under intense pressure. 

The excuse for this pressure on protest movements is that such actions have not been authorized by the government. It's a common PP refrain that the 15M activities are illegal because they do not ask for permission. Back in the real world there is actually no legal requirement in Spain to ask those in power for permission to demonstrate - just as well! The Spanish constitution guarantees the right to assembly and there is only a legal requirement to communicate the intention to meet if the event in question affects the use of areas of public transit. Failure to communicate this isn't even a serious crime, the penalty would be a fine. But for the right it's sufficient excuse to send in the riot police, and to use the law when it suits them to use it. Sports fans who come on to the streets to celebrate their team winning a trophy are unlikely to be baton charged by the police. 

Occasionally, very occasionally, the police are forced to account for excesses. With huge media coverage of the violence they used against peaceful protestors in Barcelona last year a judicial case against the senior officers responsible on the day is leading to the possibility of a trial. But will it matter? In 2009 five Catalan police officers were found guilty of mistreatment and illegal detention. Oh, I almost forgot, they were found guilty of torture too. The details of the case are appalling. Last week the PP government pardoned them and they will soon be back on duty 'upholding the law' with no penalty of any kind. How safe does that make you feel? The more you hear the vacuous rhetoric about how we are all equal before the law, and we hear it a lot these days, the less likely it is to be true. Meanwhile, let's not forget that the moderate Gallardón is STILL on the left of his party.

From Vergara in Público:

There Ain't No Justice Part 1

Time for a South of Watford mini-series on what is already promising to be a vintage year for the Spanish judicial system. I'm hoping that putting numbers on the instalments will give me sufficient impetus to follow up with the rest but there's no guarantee of that. It might just end up like one of those Spanish TV series that gets abruptly cancelled, or it could go on for ever. It's not like there's a shortage of material.

Let's start with the case of the man who we may yet have to refer to again as the Molt Honorable Francisco Camps. Acquitted yesterday by a Valencian jury of having accepted free gifts of clothing from the organisers of the Gürtel corruption ring, Camps has won what was an almighty gamble. Whilst two of his fellow accused previously declared themselves to be guilty as charged on the (ill judged) assumption that the Molt Unpredictable was going to do the same, Camps decided to bet on a jury trial getting him off the hook. 

His fellow defendant, Ricardo Costa, wisely didn't take Camps on his word and went to trial too with the result that he has also been acquitted. After a trial lasting several weeks, the nine member jury voted 5-4 for acquittal last night just in time to go off and watch the Barça-Madrid game. All of this in spite of extensive evidence having been presented of the relationship between Camps and the Gürtel ringleaders, and the evident attempts to manipulate crucial documentation in favour of the accused.

There are now many critical of the decision to leave the verdict in the hands of a jury, with claims that a more professional tribunal would never have acquitted the two men. I'm not convinced about this, after all I remember the example of judge De la Rua and with a post pending on the Spanish Supreme Court's continuing vendetta against Baltasar Garzón I'm not sure this is the moment for praising the detached professionalism of the judiciary. Juries can deliver seemingly perverse verdicts, but so can judges with decades of experience.

Perhaps, given the apparent willingness of voters in Valencia to vote for the corrupt, there could be a case for such trials to be held outside the area of influence of the politicians concerned. But then Spain's decentralized judicial system doesn't generally allow for that. We also have to take into account the separation of the case concerning the clothes from the much meatier part that concerns the possible illegal financing of the Partido Popular in Valencia via the Gürtel companies.

Ironically, the acquittal of Camps creates something of a headache for Mariano Rajoy. Having taken some tentative steps to begin a clean up of the festering swamp that the Valencian PP has become, he would send a terrible signal if Camps was to be restored as regional president. But the latter is still a member of the Valencian parliament. It's notable that there are no Valencian politicians in Rajoy's administration. Rajoy obviously has the power and patronage to put Camps in a cozy position where he can do little damage and that should probably be somewhere far from Valencia. Given that Esperanza Aguirre shows such little interest in being Spanish ambassador in Kazakhstan, perhaps a suitable position could yet be found for Mariano's old friend Paco Camps?

Tres Tristes Trajes....The Downfall Of Francisco Camps

The pressure finally told. Ever since it was formally announced a few days ago that Francisco Camps would definitely face a trial for having accepted gifts of expensive clothing from the companies involved in the Gürtel corruption case, the Valencian president had almost completely disappeared from view; all official engagements were cancelled. Then, following what seems to have been some very intense behind the scenes negotiations with the national Partido Popular, he suddenly announced his resignation yesterday afternoon. 

On his way out of the Valencian presidency Camps has created an even bigger judicial mess than that which existed before his resignation. The plan for yesterday, as pacted with the national PP, was that all four of the accused in the case were to submit a document admitting their guilt with the aim of avoiding completely an embarrassing trial. Camps and the others would pay their fines and that would be the end of this part of the story, even though it would have left Valencia with a president convicted for corruption. All the signs were that the national party would not force Camps out even if he was found guilty.

It was probably the doubt about whether he could really accept the rap and still remain as president that forced Camps to change his mind after a day of uncertainty. All a bit sad for two of the other accused who had already turned up to the courts to sign their admission of guilt. The only way of avoiding a trial altogether was for all four of the accused to do this, but with Camps still refusing to take that step there will now have to be a trial. Those who have now formally accepted their guilt will find it hard, if not legally impossible, to retract. The two, Camps and Ricardo Costa, that still formally refuse to accept the accusation against them are now tainted by those that have.

The man who had really taken the full measure of Camps was Costa, previously well known for having resigned but not really from his position in the Valencian PP. Costa refused to sign the admission of guilt until after Camps had done so, demonstrating in  the process just what levels of confidence the people who really know Camps have when it comes to trusting his word. Costa had in any case been the most unwilling to sign up to the supposed deal, apparently seeking assurances from the PP that his sacrifice would be compensated and he would not be left out in the cold if he did so. 

Finally Camps has had to face harsh realities that he thought for so long he could just wish away. The truth is he almost got away with it, only the Supreme Court ordering the Valencian courts to carry out a proper investigation after the initial acquittal has forced the situation that we now have. We know that Camps has not told the truth, but he still can't do anything that publicly acknowledges this fact. Last week it was reported that he had changed his defence strategy from claiming that he had paid himself for the clothes to admitting accepting the gifts but with the excuse that he was wearing the hat of leader of the Valencian PP at the time, rather than that of regional president. Leaving aside the bizarre distinction between his different roles when presents are being handed out, he can't simultaneously try to sustain both versions. 

The national PP has done little so far to force Camps to act. The problem has been there for two years but that is a short time for someone like Mariano Rajoy. The PP's leader could simply have refused to accept Camps as a candidate in the May elections, but instead the two men stood side by side in a grotesque end of campaign rally in Valencia. In the end it has been the prospect of a trial coming either before or even in the midst of an autumn national election campaign that has forced the national PP to put pressure on Camps. It's worth remembering that this is the small part of Gürtel in Valencia, the real meat comes in that part of the case dealing with serious accusations of illegal financing of the PP in the region. Then there are the other corruption cases affecting the Valencian PP. Mr Camps and his fine clothes are in some ways just a headline grabbing sideshow.

Rajoy supporters claim yesterdays events as vindicating his do nothing style of dealing with problems, letting people be dragged down by the force of circumstances rather than acting directly against them. Many are starting to wonder whether Rajoy's way of dealing with the internal problems in the PP is also going to be his way of dealing with important questions of government. The signs are that it will be, try asking any Rajoy supporter for a list of the man's achievements in the eight years he spent in senior positions in Aznar's administration. The man who leaves no footprints has just dozed his way through another crisis. 

It Costs An Arm And A Leg To Fly To Castellón

Until quite recently the South of Watford award for Spain's most useless airport might easily have gone to Ciudad Real's almost deserted white elephant. I now realise that CR airport is a bustling transport hub compared to some others; given that Vueling have been paid to operate a whopping 6 flights a week into the middle of nowhere. Or occasionally to Barcelona if Ciudad Real's solitary air traffic controller goes home.

Rivals for the award are becoming easier to find. It appears that Huesca only got flights in the ski season, and even these seem to have stopped. And then there is Castellón. Under the wise guidance of the "ciudadano ejemplar" Carlos Fabra (description courtesy of M. Rajoy), Castellón now has a sparkling brand new airport. It was, of course, inaugurated in time for the May elections and Fabra dismissed all nitpicking objections about the complete absence of planes inside the new installation by declaring that it was an airport for the people!

It's not even just a problem of the airport having no planes. It seems that it doesn't even have the necessary permissions that would allow flights to land there. No matter, enjoy the place. There's no imminent risk of nearby residents having their sleep disturbed by the noise of roaring jet engines. But the airport will have a statue to remind visitors of who owns the province. A tribute to the Great Tax Dodger himself is being prepared by the artist Juan Ripollés.

Sadly, yesterday there was a theft in the workshop where the statue is being prepared and the incident has revealed some intriguing details about the nature of this apparently immense work of Populist Unrealism. The thieves reportedly made off with three hands and an arm. Yes, that's right - three hands. You don't seriously expect a man who manages so many bank accounts to make do with just two hands? Not only that, but the combined weight of the booty was 2.5 tons and the thieves needed a lorry to steal it! Stalin himself would have been overwhelmed by the size of the statue being prepared in Fabra's honour. Unlike the Copa del Rey, it seems they don't have a duplicate. Yet.

Honest Candidates Have An Unfair Advantage

With the regional and municipal elections looming, the Partido Popular in Valencia has struck an important blow for equality of treatment. They lodged a complaint with the Junta Electoral, responsible for overseeing the electoral process, because several TV channels had publicised the fact that their lists for the May elections are full of people involved in corruption cases, including the long running Gürtel case. The PP claimed that this shouldn't be allowed. It goes without saying that the regional TV channel under their control would never do such a thing, those who rely solely on this channel for their information may even be unaware that their president could soon be on trial. 

Today, after what seems to have been some pressure from national PP headquarters, the Valencian party has withdrawn their complaint. The lists for the elections contain, depending on what you read, between 9-11 important PP figures who are either directly accused of offences or who are currently under investigation. The decision to pack the lists with so many suspect characters has been seen as a further snub by the Valencian PP to Mariano Rajoy, who they know to be either unwilling or unable to act over such cases. Given that they regard electoral success as being equivalent to absolution, perhaps the only surprise is the accidental inclusion of some candidates who are not yet charged with anything.

The Best Dressed Candidate In Town

It's been a while since I've written about the Gürtel corruption case. Things have been relatively quiet although the investigation continues to proceed and the amount of (usually public) money that was ripped off by those involved continues to grow. Now, with regional and municipal elections approaching in May, the case has returned to prominence because of the effect it can have on Partido Popular candidates standing at those elections. The most notable case is undoubtedly that of Francisco Camps, the Valencian president. Camps looks almost certain to be facing a trial for his acceptance of gifts of expensive clothing from those behind the Gürtel scams. The confirmation of this could easily happen in the next few weeks, leaving the Valencian leader in what you would think would be a vulnerable position.

Today the national PP has, somewhat reluctantly, issued official confirmation of Camps as their candidate for the elections. The party has been dragging its heels on this issue whilst waiting to see what happens in the courts. The word is that PP leader Mariano Rajoy would have preferred to drop Camps altogether, but we know how things work with Mariano and taking decisions. The Valencian PP has forced the hand of the national party by organising their own proclamation of the man who modestly describes himself as the candidate with the most support in the entire history of the Western world! In reality you have to say that today's decision doesn't absolutely guarantee that Camps will make it all the way to election day, although the political cost of replacing him with the campaign ever closer may be higher than letting him stand.

Both Camps and the PP have been engaging in intense background legal manoeuvres to try and delay the announcement of a trial, obviously with the hope that they can kick it into touch until after the elections. This is not because Camps will lose the election, all the signs are that rampant corruption in Valencia is having no effect at all on the PP's support in the region. It's more a question of appearances. Having a candidate who could soon be on trial for corruption forces the PP to openly argue what they privately believe, that it doesn't matter how corrupt you are as long as you can persuade people to vote for you. The philosophy has been best expressed by (who better to say it?) notable tax dodger Carlos Fabra who has claimed that Camps will be absolved by the ballot box.

All of which gives us a taste of what to expect if the PP recover national power in 2012. In true Berlusconi style we can expect a PP government to devote much of its time in office to rescuing its own members from their legal difficulties. All parties are the same, some say, and that's certainly the argument that the most corrupt like to promote as they benefit from such a belief. But there isn't currently any other party in Spain that dedicates itself so energetically to undermining any legal process involving their members as the PP does. Nevertheless, in the interests of balance I'll point readers of this blog in the direction of a map of political corruption prepared by the No Les Votes campaign; created by opponents of the Ley Sinde.

Merry Christmas Señor Fabra

There was another notable absence from the rogues gallery of Partido Popular leaders featured in the party's Christmas video. Christmas came a little bit late this year for Carlos Fabra, the cacique who runs the Castellón PP. Never mind, his present made up for the delay, as the Castellón courts decided to drop almost all of the serious tax fraud charges that he was facing. It's not that the court declared that no crime had been committed, just that a formal accusation had not been made in time for the statute of limitations to run out on the offences committed.

It's worth remembering that the case against Fabra is not based on speculative mudslinging accusations. His numerous bank accounts have been studied by experts from Hacienda who have checked no fewer than 17,000 financial transactions involving Fabra, his family and their companies. They came to the conclusion that don Carlos had no less than €3,7 million of income that he couldn't justify, and which of course had not been declared to the tax authorities. Around €1 million of this is what is said to be owing to Hacienda, which seems quite a generous rate of taxation for such a large amount. Anyway, it all counts when we have such a large budget deficit to deal with. 

The case against Fabra has experienced an unusually large number of problems over the years, as the local court supposed to handle it has suffered repeated changes of judge which have of course helped the Fabras in escaping the day of reckoning. The anti-corruption prosecutors are going to appeal yesterday's decision on the not unreasonable grounds that if a tax fraud charge for the year 1999 still stands then so should accusations concerning the continued fraud in the following years. Fabra is still also facing charges of influence trafficking, but the strategy will no doubt be one of delaying the process in the hope that an incoming PP government will take care of the matter to his advantage. Prescription is an option that always seems to be almost exclusively reserved for the wealthy and powerful.

There is every reason to think that the PP will behave this way given the manner in which they have celebrated Fabra getting away with it. Champagne corks have been popping inside the party for the man who PP leader Mariano Rajoy has described as an "exemplary citizen". It's still an open question what hold Fabra has on the PP's leadership given that they defend him even more firmly than other prominent figures, such as Francisco Camps, who are not facing such serious charges. The party tries to act as if prescription of the charges is the same thing as proof of innocence, and that massive tax fraud is fine as long as no court ever pronounces on it.

Anybody who pays their taxes should choke on reading the details of Fabra's income and his attitude concerning declaration of his income. On this sort of issue it seems that Spain divides into two, El Club de los Listillos (Fabra & company) and La Clase Gilipollas - those of us who pay the extra cost of the corruption of the listillos as well as all the public services. The worst thing is that the listillos don't depend just on their own cleverness in ripping the rest of us off, they get the votes of a good part of the Clase Gilipollas to tell them that what they are doing is fine. I marvel at the way in which people like Fabra will be defended by those who only lose from doing so, and whose only arguments are the pathetic "but I know of someone in another party who's also corrupt" or the even more hopeless "why don't you talk about <any other problem but this>".

The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that if the PP return to power we should all stop paying our taxes, that should get us a round of applause from the government. Or have I missed something?

How To Cut The TV Signal With A Single Sheet Of Paper

On today's edition of Handy Hints we're going to show you how you can use a sheet of paper to stop your local TV station from transmitting. I know what you're thinking - it sounds ridiculous but bear with me for a minute. In the best traditions of this kind of programming, here is an example we prepared earlier:



See how easy it is? There is some debate about what you should put on the paper to achieve the best results. It does seem that in Valencia the words "Gürtel" or "corruption" produce the goods, although there may well be others that work too. In future episodes we'll look at how to use the same TV station, a simple papal visit, and your neighbourhood bunch of thieves to make millions.

Promotion Is Clearly A Herculean Task

The new football season in Spain hasn't even begun and already the competition is tainted. A corruption investigation involving the fixing of refuse collection contracts in Alicante has also exposed attempts to buy off the opposition by those running the local club, Hércules. The team was promoted last season to the Spanish first division, in a very tight finish, and the surveillance recordings made as part of the corruption investigation have revealed that payments were offered to opponents in return for throwing the game.

The judge handling the original case is not very interested in this issue, bribing your opponents in order to win a match is not a criminal offence in Spain. At least not yet, the new version of the Codigo Penal to be introduced in December will make it an offence. However, with the existing law the judge has ruled that the recordings cannot even be handed over for investigation by the sporting authorities. Prosecutors are trying to get round this by suggesting that the offence could be fraud, via an attempt to fix the outcome of games which people bet on through the football pools.

Real Betis, the club from Sevilla that just lost out to Hércules in the promotion battle, is naturally doing everything that they can to challenge the promotion of their rivals. As one of the 'bigger' clubs in Spanish football they may have more chances than others would. So far the Spanish football federation appears to have nothing at all to say about the issue, a fairly typical response which they apply to most problems that arise in the sport that they are notionally in charge of. The idea of the federation as being little more than a glorified travel agency becomes ever stronger.

The Alicante corruption case also creates a variety of grand slam in the Valencia region. It means that all three provincial leaders of the Partido Popular are now involved in (different) corruption cases. The national PP, however, keeps a clean sheet by not applying their much vaunted code of ethics to any of the leaders involved. It would be a fine photograph if they all attended the first Hércules home game in the league this season.

The Happy Camps

Now that the Supreme Court has returned the case concerning Gürtel and Francisco Camps to the Valencian courts, it has become clear just what a gift to the Valencian president was the decision by the local courts to shelve the case last year. The Supreme Court ruling does not make it certain that Camps will stand trial for the gifts he received from the Gürtel companies, but it makes it quite likely. At the same time it puts the political future of one of the Partido Popular's main regional barons in doubt.

Some things have of course changed since judge Juan Luis de la Rúa came to the assistance of his friend Mr Camps last August. Despite the claims of many in the PP that this is a trivial case of a few innocent gifts we now know quite a lot more about the close ties between the Valencian administration and the Gürtel companies. The African bull elephant in this particular room is the issue of illegal financing of the PP, and a report prepared by Hacienda suggests that the party could have hidden around 2.5 million euros of income. None of this affects directly the case against Camps, because the main bulk of the Gürtel case remains in the hands of the investigating magistrate in Madrid.

The PP's defence is already familiar. On the one hand we have Camps continuing to claim that he didn't receive gifts anyway, whilst his closest associates suggest that even if he did there is no problem as no one would sell himself for a few suits! This gets mixed in with the "they're all out to get us" conspiracy theory which tries to present the party as an innocent victim of the corruption case. However, the decision by the Supreme Court leaves it clear that the judges do not believe the version of events offered by Camps. When the judge in Madrid recently asked for details of all those involved in awarding contracts to the Gürtel companies, the PP's legal machine went into overdrive to try and stop this from happening.

Camps organised today a homage to himself, but attention already focuses on the absentees from this event. Party leader Mariano Rajoy seems to be so keen to avoid being seen with Camps at the moment that he took what I at least consider to be the extreme measure of going to eat snails in Lleida! There are many voices inside the PP who now question whether he can continue as Valencian president and bets are already being taken on who his successor might be. Not that he doesn't have any friends at all. One of the Basque PP's hardliners, Carlos Iturgaiz, described those criticising Camps as "Bolshevik hyenas". Which tells us all we need to know about his ideological roots.

Before the Supreme Court reached their decision there was optimism in the PP that Camps might get away with it, and Rajoy said at one point that he would still be the PP candidate in Valencia regardless of what the justice system had to say. Yes, this is the same party that lectures the rest of us on respect for judicial decisions. At least so far there is no sign of the case having any impact on the PP's electoral support in Valencia, but it will be harder to pretend that everything is going fine for the leader if he has to go on trial. Despite the evident danger to his position, Camps still remains trapped in his own little world of "Estoy tan feliz, todo es muy bonito".

The Battle Of El Cabanyal

The timing was perfect. On the day that media attention in Spain was almost entirely focused on the release of the evidence in the Gürtel case, Valencia's town hall sent in the bulldozers to demolish houses in the historic barrio of El Cabanyal. It was an act of open provocation, there is still an unresolved dispute between the Valencian regional and city administrations and the national government over the plans to demolish a significant part of the Cabanyal. Although the demolitions were not inside the area covered by the government's protection, the intention was clearly to shift the balance towards destruction of the area by turning parts of it into a wasteland.

The residents of the area and their supporters protested against the sending of the bulldozers and the response was brutal on the part of the police sent in to protect the demolitions. Despite police claims that they faced aggression from the protestors, television footage has clearly shown people sitting on the road being beaten by police batons. Some of the victims of this violence have already lodged legal charges, and even the government is for once investigating the police actions. The situation is strange, the government is opposed to the demolitions yet much of the police violence came from the national force who are not under the orders of Valencian politicians.

The Valencian administration hopes to turn El Cabanyal into the latest construction based "pelotazo", once they get those awful old low-rise houses out of the way. The profits may not go to the Gürtel companies in this case, but there are other friends to take care of. The government has referred the issue to the Constitutional Court, but in the meantime the Valencian administration will seek to achieve what they want through facts on the ground.

Gürtel....The Weight Of The Evidence Counts

If you judge the solidity of a legal accusation by the weight of the documentary evidence supporting it, then the Gürtel corruption case has to be seen as one of the best. The lifting of secrecy on virtually all of the judicial investigation in Madrid has left us with another 50,000 pages of evidence to add to the 17,000 that were already released a few months ago. Even allowing for the fact that legal documents tend to use 500 words to say what most of us can explain with 100, that's still an impressive dust cloud that has to be shifted when someone gets Gürtel landing on their desk. Perhaps thats why they adopted the relatively ecological strategy of making it available for download rather than posting it to the affected parties.

One thing is for sure, the legal rejection of some of the recordings made between lawyers and the accused has not affected the substance of the case, as some may have hoped. There is a wealth of evidence from other sources that supports the key accusations. The press coverage so far has tended to focus on the accusations against the Partido Popular national treasurer and member of the Senate, Luis Bárcenas. The prosecution claims that there is no room for doubt about him being the person identified in various ways in the documentation concerning the case. He is said to have received at least €1.3 million from the organisers of the ring and that both he and his wife possess significant wealth which has not been declared or justified to the tax authorities. Apart from Bárcenas there have been further revelations about the lavish gifts received by PP politicians in Madrid and Valencia.

The Partido Popular has adopted a strategy of attempting to minimise any impact from the latest revelations. Before anyone had time to actually read any significant part of the released documentation, the party was already claiming that there was nothing new in the prosecution case. Now from the point of view of the PP this may be true, because they are sitting on all of the contracts that were handed out to the Gürtel accused by the party and the administrations they control. It can be argued that they must know exactly what has been going on, probably more than anyone else except the accused themselves. The other part of their political strategy is to try and claim that the PP is an innocent victim of a bunch of "chorizos" who have taken advantage of the party. For all the world as if no PP politicians were accused of anything! Or as if the influence of the key figures amongst the accused did not reach into the highest echelons of the party.

Above all the PP has been at pains to try and suggest that there are no indications of illicit party funding in the prosecution case. Now whilst it's true that there is no demonstrated intention at national level to hide dubious party funding, it's quite clear that there are very strong grounds for suspicion of this in both Madrid and Valencia. In Madrid the case has brought together the Gürtel scandal and the murky use of the aptly named Fundescam foundation which appears to have been used to hide the origin of much of the PP's electoral spending in the region. Much is made by the PP's defenders of how Esperanza Aguirre has acted to remove those accused from their positions, but as I pointed out last week this is really little more than an attempt to put a bit of distance between her administration and Gürtel. Because the investigation makes clear that almost of those multiple contracts awarded "a dedo" in Madrid to Gürtel companies blatantly broke the rules on the awarding of public contracts and senior members of Aguirre's administration are said to have benefitted handsomely from this.

In Valencia the accusation is that companies which subsequently received contracts from the regional government very generously decided to pay some of the PP's expenses....to the Gürtel run companies. Given the evident reluctance of Valencian judges to pursue corruption charges against their friends in the regional government it's quite possible that little will come of this strand of the investigation. But it has been documented for posterity. The outcome may depend on whether the Supreme Court rejects the absolution of Valencian president Francisco Camps.

Then there is the case of Bárcenas. You have to remember that the judge investigating in Madrid will not be putting Bárcenas on trial, as a member of the Senate he can only be tried by the Supreme Court and that particular part of the case is still covered by secrecy. It's possible that Bárcenas may end up "only" being accused of tax fraud, because accepting money in return for favours as treasurer of a political party is not criminal behaviour. But then the still unanswered question is why he would get so much money from Correa and company; in return for what? If he has really been paid what the judge alleges, then it seems a lot for the Gürtel companies to give just to get a few contracts for organising party meetings.

Lastly there is the additional question of why Bárcenas enjoys such special protection from the PP, including the paying of his defence lawyer? We haven't got to the root of everything yet and it's revealing that the PP thinks that protecting someone who may have committed such significant fraud is a normal thing to do. Mariano Rajoy has gone missing, but not in action; that's not his style. Not a word has been heard from the PP leader who only a couple of days ago was promising swift action against any (new) cases of corruption in the PP.

El Limbo De La Dependencia

The Ley de Dependencia is perhaps one of the most significant pieces of legislation introduced by Zapatero's administration. It recognises the situation of many people who are having to spend much of their lives looking after dependent relatives, and offers financial assistance to them. I wrote a post over two years ago on how this law was being systematically obstructed by the regional government in Madrid, and it's sad to report that this situation still exists when most other regions of the country have implemented the law in full. In Madrid thousands of applications for help under this law have been ignored. It matters little to the Aguirre gang that those who pay the heaviest price for their political posturing are amongst the most vulnerable.

It seems that there are two regional governments in particular, those of Madrid and Valencia (both PP controlled), who are determined to ensure that no national government initiative with any risk of being popular gets implemented successfully. It's not just the case with the Ley de Dependencia, the government's education plan to ensure access of all schoolchildren to laptop computers has also been obstructed in both of these regions. Of course neither Madrid nor Valencia likes to claim that they do this just for reasons of sectarian political opposition, they find all sorts of other pretexts for not being able to do what the rest of the country can. But when it comes to non-compliance the same names come up again and again. With Murcia occasionally joining in.

We wait to see now what will happen with the plan by the national government to tighten anti-smoking legislation, but Madrid has already hinted that this law could go the same way as the current one; completely ignored in the Spanish capital because the regional government refuses to enforce it. With the rumours of a new law being introduced Esperanza Aguirre left it to one of her most loyal sidekicks to express opposition. The fact that the smarmy Juan José Güemes is allegedly responsible for Madrid's health service and supervises the spending of huge sums on treating tobacco related diseases doesn't mean that he should not lead the charge. I know what you are thinking, surely the PP that runs these regions can't be related to the other PP that constantly claims it is the only party supporting equality of treatment between all of Spain's autonomous regions? It is, I have to insist, the very same party.

El Patio Se Queda

Last week the police closed off several streets in the centre of Madrid for a special operation. No, it was nothing to do with terrorism or even anything that remotely affected the safety or lives of the vast majority of Madrileños. The big police operation was solely to remove the squatters from a building in the Calle de Acuerdo that had been left empty for years. El Patio de Maravillas was not just a squat for people to live, it housed workshops in languages or bicycle maintenance, offered legal advice services and staged numerous cultural events over the last couple of years. In other words, it made good use of a building that had been left empty for years by its owner and which now may well be empty again until Madrid's ever generous administration permits its demolition for speculative construction purposes. The owner, you will be amazed to hear, is of course a long standing member of the PP who, even more amazingly, is involved already in what could be described as some legally questionable activities related to construction projects.

The occupants of the Patio and their supporters accepted the expulsion, they had little choice given such a massive display of force. However, it didn't take long for them to find a new home with another decaying, unused, building in the nearby Calle del Pez. The Patio continues and represents a movement in favour of a model that finds social uses for buildings where the owner desires nothing more than a demolition order and a subsequent "pelotazo". Madrid is not short of such buildings, there is one in my street that has been empty since I arrived and probably for years before. Anyway, that's enough about Madrid, what about the situation in Valencia?

The barrio of Cabanyal is one of the most traditional in Valencia, and for that reason alone it must have the heart ripped out of it. The Valencian administration wants to make a huge hole in the Cabanyal so that they can extend a broad avenue all the way to the sea. Their argument is that Valencians need "access" to the beach and in their view of the world no sane Valencian would go down to the sea without a broad new road where they can drive their broad new car. Also, incidentally of course, some nice new 5-6 storey blocks of flats can be built by the usual suspects to replace all of those ugly old low buildings. The residents of the barrio didn't agree with the plan and the national Culture Ministry agreed with them by blocking it. The response from the Valencian regional government didn't take long, Mr Camps put on his best suit and an emergency session was convened to change the local legislation protecting buildings of cultural interest so that they can be demolished more easily. Truly an administration that thinks of nothing except the well-being of those who so generously support it.

Camps Takes Valencia For A Ride

The image of the week so far in Spain has to be this one. As Partido Popular leader Mariano Rajoy was delivering his big speech on the need for the PP to unite behind his leadership there were a couple of notable absentees from the event. One was the renegade Aguirre, but that didn't surprise anyone, and she excused herself quietly on the grounds of family commitments. Francisco Camps of Valencia decided to make sure everyone noticed his absence by leaving for a far more important event; he had to be seen driving a Ferrari in the presentation of Fernando Alonso as a member of that Formula 1 team.

Camps is increasingly becoming a problem for his party and for Rajoy, who had depended on the support he got from Valencia to bolster his own position. Last week in the Valencian parliament Camps made the extraordinary accusation that the opposition PSOE wanted to take him out for a Spanish Civil War style execution which would leave him lying face down in a makeshift grave. Even Camps had to at least partially retract this attack, which many people saw as a sign of his increasing nervousness and erratic behaviour as his previously safe position comes under threat. Not that the threat comes from the opposition in Valencia, his main enemies now are in his own party. In any case, there is far more accumulated experience within that party of bodies being dumped by the road side.

Another insight into the world according to Camps came from a report describing an exchange he had with the judge who was investigating the case of the gifts he is said to have received in the Gürtel case. Questioned about a recorded conversation where Alvaro "El Bigotes" Perez had suggested he was in debt to Camps, the Valencian president allegedly replied by claiming that all Valencians were in his debt because of what he had done for the region! Clearly not suffering from problems of self esteem, he seems unable to deal with the possibility that he may be on the road to becoming a liability for the PP. In the meantime, expect lots of expensive distractions like the one we saw on Sunday, the circus must continue.

Ready For Rajoy's Super Tuesday?

Last year it always seemed to be Monday that was the worst day of the week for Mariano Rajoy, as it is for many of us. In Mariano's case it was because that was the day chosen by his enemies inside the Partido Popular to complicate his bid to stay as leader of the party. Well last week he must have felt that every day was Monday, so bad did things get that even Rajoy himself finally had to protest and...this was a novelty...take decisions!

It was bad enough with the bitter battle taking place within the PP in Madrid over control of Caja Madrid, a conflict that reached its peak with the (kamikaze?) interview that Manuel Cobo gave to El País, in which too much about Esperanza Aguirre's leadership style was revealed for anyone's liking. Then Valencia struck back in a bid to steal the limelight. Ricardo Costa had resigned as secretary general of the PP in that region as a result of the revelations from the Gürtel case, at least that was what the national party claimed. The problem was that he carried on doing the job and the press reported it. Even that might not have disturbed Rajoy's siesta if it hadn't been for the fact that Costa felt the need to draw attention to his defiance. At that point the national leadership finally decided they had to do something, and Costa was promptly suspended from the party.

Meanwhile Aguirre, despite having effectively lost the battle to place her man in charge of Caja Madrid, was still mobilising her forces and preparing to surround the Ayuntamiento of Madrid until she got someone's head on a spike. By now there was hardly a senior PP figure who wasn't out there somewhere with their diagnosis of what was wrong with the party. José Maria Aznar couldn't be left out and launched a thinly disguised attack on Rajoy's leadership. Proving just how little shame he has, he even called on politicians to act over corruption. Given that the guest list from his daughter's wedding now reads like a Who's Who of the Gürtel case you would think that a bit of discretion might be advisable.

We even got the opinions of Manuel Pizarro, who if you remember was the PP's economics superstar in the last election...for about 30 minutes. Pizarro treated us to a parable of a shepherd unable to lead his flock without the help of a trusty sheepdog to keep order. He finished by claiming that Rodrigo Rato would make an excellent president of Caja Madrid, and an excellent head of the government! Woken up just before the removal men arrived to carry him away, Rajoy invoked the spirit of Job and declared that his patience was at an end. What's more, he set a deadline to put an end to the PP's crisis and that deadline expires today.

It's been a busy weekend, Valencian leader Francisco Camps had what was said to have been a very tense conversation with Mariano about Costa, and today he finally announced a successor for Costa's job. Camps gives the impression of living in a parallel universe where everything is "muy bonito". Knives are being sharpened around him but he seems completely unaware of how his situation is deteriorating. In Madrid Espe sent out Ignacio Gonzalez to confirm her defeat, as Gonzalez gave way to Rato in Caja Madrid. Here is the man who is probably the big winner in all of this, not only does he get another nice little earner but he emerges untouched by all the infighting surrounding his appointment.

Today we will get Rajoy's speech to the national executive, now that he has ensured a temporary ceasefire. Stand by for the internal party code of conduct on corruption! This will presumably be followed by the family photograph where everyone will gather as near to each other as they can bear to stand, the weapons having been checked in at the door. On Wednesday we will find out whether Aguirre gets a consolation prize as Manuel Cobo appears before the PP's disciplinary committee charged with telling the truth. The PP has a lead of 3% over the government in the opinion poll published today, but with data gathered before the latest crisis; a lead that is due more to a decline in support for the PSOE than any significant rise for the PP. It will take a day or two before someone in the party unfavourably compares Rajoy's advantage with that enjoyed by the Tories in Britain, then they can all get back to fighting each other again.

The Gürtel Case Casts A Long Shadow

One of my unfinished posts before going on holiday was going to argue that the impact of the Gürtel corruption case was only just beginning to be felt. The main reason was not so much the continuing revelations in the press about the activities of Francisco Correa and company, it was more because the case was still under the "secreto del sumario", which keeps the investigation confidential until the prosecution case is established. While I was away that protection was partially lifted and those who liked to believe that the whole case was just an anti Partido Popular operation invented by Baltasar Garzón now have 17,000 pages of evidence to read involving criminal accusations against over 70 people. That should keep them going until the other two thirds of the case is also revealed. It is said that the main reason for the continuing secrecy is that investigators are following the international trail of the Gürtel millions.

Meanwhile the main action in the last month has been in Valencia. A police report claiming that the Valencian PP was using illegal funding from companies that received contracts from the regional government ended up causing far more damage than the case of Mr Camps and his very fine suits. After a protracted tussle, the national PP leadership eventually managed to force the resignation of Valencian PP general secretary Ricardo Costa. The nature of that battle tells us much about Mariano Rajoy's "leadership" of his party. Ever since being reelected as leader of the PP, Rajoy has spent much of his time in Valencia as regional president Francisco Camps had effectively become his main prop within the party. For Rajoy to make the Valencian party bend to his will in the case of Costa was never going to be easy and at one point it looked quite possible that he would fail. In any case, the temporary "resignation" of Costa appears to be a fiction; although not appearing publicly in the name of the PP it seems that he is still working from his office in the party headquarters.

Camps himself is seriously damaged by the affair, and there has been plenty of speculation about him being finished politically - some of it coming from within the PP itself. The arrogance shown by the Valencian PP in shrugging off evidence of corrupt behaviour doesn't just come from Rajoy depending on their support. The clear unwillingness of the Valencian courts to deal with any evidence against Camps and his allies must be very reassuring, as is the evidence of opinion polls that most PP voters in the region couldn't care less about the corruption of their representatives. The Valencian judges put on a magnificent display of judicial cynicism over the police report, which they had received from Madrid. We'll deal with that after the case of the suits, they said. Then, having shelved the case against Camps over his presents from the Gürtel ring, they used the fact that there was no case open any more as an excuse for not dealing with the police report! Such loyalty will surely bring rewards.

Back with the main prosecution case, we have learnt from the published evidence in a case already overrun with nicknames that Correa liked to be called "Don Vito". Clearly this was a man who did his utmost to avoid attracting any suspicion within the PP about his activities. Correa's own declarations also reveal that the advancement of his influence in the PP was much helped by Madrid's deputy mayor Ana Botella taking a shine to Álvaro "El Bigotes" Pérez. She likes men with moustaches, and the presence of both Correa and Pérez at the wedding of Aznar and Botella's daughter is the simple answer to those who would pretend that these people were marginal figures in the PP. Right on cue we get the announcement this week that Aznar - stop giggling at the back, this is serious - is going to deliver a series of classes on ethics and politics at a Catholic university in Murcia. I swear on a copy of today's Marca that I'm not making this up. Despite all of this the PP still seeks to present itself as a helpless victim of Correa and friends on the one hand ("los chorizos"), and the implacable persecution orchestrated by a shady organisation known as "el gobierno" on the other. If it doesn't bring a tear to your eye then you have no heart.

Saving the best for last, let's turn to Madrid and our revered regional president. Fans of Esperanza Aguirre, and she has some, have praised her for a quick witted reaction to the lifting of the secreto del sumario. She immediately expelled the three members of her group in the regional parliament who are facing criminal accusations, and her behaviour has been contrasted with that of the slow response by Rajoy and the Valencians. What is far more interesting is what the Gürtel sumario tells us about the way Aguirre's government works. She likes to present herself as showing the way when it comes to austerity and lean government, but almost all of the numerous and expensive contracts awarded by Espe's administration to the Gürtel companies concerned the organisation of events designed to promote the image of Aguirre herself.

Some examples. Espe visits an industrial estate in Getafe? Ka ching! That will be over €30,000 into the Gürtel coffers. La Lideresa inaugurates a school, an event you might have thought would cost little more than the price of her Metro ticket. Ka ching! More thousands of euros for Gürtel. Nothing is sacred here, how about a homage to the emergency workers that dealt with the aftermath of the Madrid bombings? Ka ching ka ching! Those who do not understand the dynamic of the liberalisation of public services may fail to comprehend why Madrid had to repeatedly pay the Gürtel companies to hire the same four plasma screens, or the red carpet tiles, or some of the most expensive flowers ever bought. As true economic liberals, Madrid's rulers handed the companies concerned over 300 contracts, broken into smaller ones where necessary to avoid any need to put the contract out to tender. We wouldn't want the chill winds of competition to spoil such a nice little earner. Despite this and the fact that she has had months to examine all the contracts, Aguirre would like us to believe she didn't know what was happening.

El Molt Honorable Francisco Camps

They say there's a big party going on tonight down at the Tailor's Head pub in Valencia. The Valencian Supreme Court came to the rescue today of the region's president Francisco Camps by halting the case against him concerning his very fine clothes and the Gürtel corruption ring. The three man panel issuing the verdict was inevitably headed by the man whose relationship with Camps is so close that friendship is not a sufficient word to describe it. No doubt Camps will be out early tomorrow looking for a bigger dictionary to try and find the word he is looking for to explain his feelings for judge Juan Luis de la Rua, I think "saviour" might be a good starting point. Even so, an overwhelmingly conservative tribunal still split 2:1 on the decision meaning that De la Rua effectively had the casting vote. Just how close a friend of the accused do you have to be before you step down from hearing a case against them?

The reasons given by the judges are to say the least arguable, and the state prosecution service has already announced its intention to appeal to the national Supreme Court. It seems that one of the principal arguments for shelving the case has been the absence of a direct link between the gifts given to Camps and friends, and the contracts awarded to the company Orange Market. Apart from anything else this argument seems to open the floodgates to elected politicians receiving expensive presents from companies that work for their administrations; as if those gates really needed opening!

Most of all, however, the argument fails because the Valencian courts have so far refused to investigate any possible connection between the contracts awarded and tailor-made suits, expensive watches, circus tickets and so on. Indeed the decision on whether to accept the case referred to them from Madrid last week has been postponed until after today's verdict. Of course you never find evidence for something that you don't look for. Having found no case against those who were accused of accepting bribes, it now seems very unlikely that the same judges will proceed against those accused of paying them. It's all molt curious, if you'll pardon my Valencian.

Orange Market have made millions out of the Valencian government and many of these contracts were "troceado", a euphenism for slicing a contract into smaller pieces so that it can be awarded directly without having to go out for public tender. It's a device that is not just restricted to Valencia and which is almost always used to favour certain companies. We can now expect the traditional Christmas cestas full of goodies to be even more luxurious than normal in the Valencia region this year - perhaps it will be enough to kick start the economy? They could put a sticker on each pata negra ham saying "Approved by the Valencian Supreme Court". Meanwhile Mr Camps and company will carry on doing whatever suits them.

My Tailor Is Still Not Rich, But My Treasurer Is Loaded

It might seem like overkill to have yet another post on the Operación Gürtel corruption case, but so much is going on that it's hard to do it all justice in a single post. So let's start with some prison humour. Francisco Correa, the man at the heart of the scandal, is currently in prison while the investigation into his business dealings continues. He recently appealed for release on the grounds of - wait for it - claustrophobia. The investigating judge turned this down on the reasonable enough grounds that whilst his problem prevented him from getting into a lift, it didn't seem serious enough to prevent him from getting on a plane and leaving the country. Correa was subsequently reported as asking what he was doing in a place where he was surrounded by delinquents! This probably provoked as much laughter inside the prison as it did outside.

Meanwhile in Valencia the case against the regional president Francisco Camps also continues and is set to go to trial. Camps has lodged an appeal with the overwhelmingly conservative supreme court in Valencia and still seems confident that the case will not make it to court; although his predictions so far on what would happen have not been very accurate. The tribunal that will hear his appeal is presided over by a judge whose relationship with Camps is so close that the latter famously claimed that friendship was not a sufficient word to describe it. In spite of this, the judge concerned appears to feel no need to stand down from hearing the case. The odd thing about the Valencian proceedings is that those accused of receiving the gifts could go on trial, but those said to have provided them will not. The Valencian judiciary is steering well clear of investigating the multiple contracts awarded to Correa's band by the regional government.

Staying close to the beach, the Mayor of Valencia - Rita Barberá - has also become involved in the scandal. She is the one who came out with the very Berlusconiano argument that if the law prevents a politician from receiving gifts then the only solution is to change the law. Then El País reported the allegation that she had also received gifts of expensive handbags from those involved in Gürtel. Barberá replied by claiming that it was all just an attempt to divert attention from the plight of the unemployed, many of whom currently have plentiful time to try and work out just how long they could survive on the price of a single one of Rita's favourite Louis Vuitton bags.

Turning our attention to an important city that still doesn't have a playa, the tailor who provided key evidence on the expensive suits provided to Camps and associates got his job back. José Tomás was sacked by his employer immediately after testifying before Baltasar Garzón about who had paid for all those clothes, no off the peg rubbish involved here. A tribunal heard his case under Spain's appallingly anachronistic legislation that stops people from being sacked for leaving important people in embarrassing situations. Faced with the prospect of paying substantial compensation, the employer finally reinstated Tomás but has done it in such a way that he is clearly trying to force the tailor to leave his job voluntarily.

Just a short walk down the road from the expensive clothes shops of the Barrio de Salamanca we find the headquarters of the Partido Popular, where there is an immediate vacancy for anyone with experience in handling the financial affairs of a political party. The PP's treasurer, Luis Bárcenas, yesterday announced that he was temporarily standing down from his job. This followed weeks of growing pressure on him, and his declaration before the investigating judge in Madrid a few days ago. As soon as I heard the news of his resignation I suspected that this was because he knew that the judge was about to request the lifting of his parliamentary immunity as a member of the Spanish Senate. Sure enough, today we got the confirmation, although the announcement coincided with the final session of the Senate before they go off for a well deserved summer break. They'll deal with this troublesome matter in September.

Anyone still here? There's more. The Supreme Court is handily located just across the road from the PP headquarters. Bárcenas clearly didn't convince the judge about the origin of his very extensive fortune, and investigations are continuing with Hacienda taking a keen interest; times are hard for the tax collectors. Perhaps even worse, Bárcenas took the very bold step of naming names as alternative candidates for those answering to the initials of LB or the nickname of "Luis el cabrón". He named a director of a construction company who shares these initials and whose most likely response is going to be another lawsuit against Mr Bárcenas. The case against Bárcenas for corruption rests on a single payment, all the others he is claimed to have received from Correa come from before his nomination as a senator. As treasurer of the PP he could trouser as many bribes as he likes, but as a senator it's a different matter. Even so, his tax "oversights" could perhaps help to reduce Spain's budget deficit.

The whole case has had the PP reeling in recent weeks, with growing internal criticism of Mariano Rajoy for letting Bárcenas continue in his post. The party at one point was reduced to issuing its political messages by SMS, with the sole aim of avoiding appearances by its leaders in places where journalists might ask uncomfortable questions. So then came the counter attack, under the control of none other than Federico Trillo. This is the man who organised the initial counter offensive against judge Baltasar Garzón, who had set the now enormous snowball rolling down the hill. Trillo and the PP launched a battery of appeals against Garzón and claimed that he was responsible for the extensive leaking of crucial evidence. All of these were rejected, Garzón no longer has anything to do with the case and even Trillo has had to reluctantly acknowledge that the judge was not responsible for the press reports. So now they have turned their fire on the police investigating the case, trying to mix in claims that it is all coordinated by the interior minister and friendly media. Trillo doesn't do very well when it comes to identifications, but the aim in any case is to deflect attention and present the PP as victim of an evil conspiracy.

Phew. That's more or less it for now, but if things carry on this way I may have to resort to a special Gürtel episode of the smash hit series Fideos en la Boca as an attempt to explain it all.

The Gürtel Way To Better Spanish....La Pastuqui

Continuing with what promises to be a revolutionary new method for learning colloquial Spanish, I am pleased to present the latest published transcript of a conversation from those behind the Gürtel corruption case which introduces the eager student to ways of talking about money. The conversation concerns the installation of the stands for the Formula One race held in Valencia last year, a job which appears to have been awarded to the Gürtel clan. A potentially very lucrative contract as the end of the conversation between our two protagonists demonstrates:

Crespo: "Sí, le voy a decir que aquí... si sale el tema bien... hay pelas".

Correa: "Aquí hay pelas y, si sale bien, hay pelas para todos. Una pastuqui importante, vamos".

Now it's almost inevitable that someone will try to suggest that the awarding of the contract has something to do with the close friendship between the Gürtel people and the elegantly dressed higher echelons of the Valencian regional government. Such unfounded insinuations will not be tolerated here on South of Watford, let me make that clear.