I struggle to believe that Graeme@South of Watford really believes that the PP is the only rampantly corrupt political party in Spain–maybe I just haven’t read enough of his posts–but here anyway (thanks to El Ciruco) is another nice example of PSOE trough management from their Andalusian fiefdom.

One suspects that few politicians here would take to reading even if they were able to, but by whatever other means they have all absorbed Mr Goebbels’ dictum as to the importance of the radio in mediating movement and nation, idea and man. And so it is accepted practice for administrations to fill the state broadcasters on their patch with placemen and to deny work and licences to the opposition.

This is easy when you’re appointing senior management, who will have only got where they have by licking posterior, but more difficult when you’re filling junior posts where it is still unclear which way candidates hang. So what the consulting firm employed Radio and Television Andalusia (RTVA) did this time round was make one of the four current affairs questions in an entrance quiz grossly offensive to PP supporters by bringing up in an apparently insensitive way (what was the actual question?) that old red herring about Aznar inseminating French minister Rachida Dati. Anyway, the PSOE has now backed down and this recruitment round will probably go the way of the last one submitted to open competition, eight years ago, which was declared invalid by the Supreme Court.

One of my favourite uses of public exams to fuck off people you hate took place several years back, when an American girl I knew decided for some reason to get herself the advanced Catalan exam (D certificate). Everything seemed to be going fine until she got to the oral and found that she was required to read out to the examiners at the top of her voice a text describing the Americans as vulgar racist thieves bent on world destruction. Many people would have described her as anti-American at the time, but I believe she found it excruciatingly humiliating, and the last I heard she was working in Berlin.

Tags: broadcasting, corruption, PP, PSOE
Categories: Empires, rulers and warfare, Les bourgeois

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1. Graeme
   November 24th 2008 18:33

   Not guilty yer honour - amongst cases I have written about on my blog in the last year I could cite the fairly prominent examples of Seseña and Estepona. Both involve PSOE led administrations. I still think the PP has taken over as clear leader in construction fuelled corruption since the GIL went to prison. Maybe that’s just because they control Valencia, Murcia and Madrid.

2. Trevor
   November 25th 2008 09:14

   I wonder if this perception has anything to do with your having lived in Madrid as opposed to Barcelona, Seville or whatever.

3. Tom
   November 25th 2008 10:11

   Nah, I think most people consider all political parties to be more or less corrupt, but the PP do seem to be embroiled in the very worst of the cases.

   NB: the link to ElEconomista.es doesn’t work, but I find it difficult to believe that the question was that bad. Unless the applicants were utterly besotted by (or horny for) Aznar, in which case there’s really very little you can do.

4. lenox
   November 25th 2008 10:39

   Perhaps all politicians are corrupt bastards. However, while that is expected of a right wing capitalist party, it always comes as a shock when the so-called ‘champions of the people’ are up for it. Here in Andalucía, run by President-for-life Chaves, the corruption curls your hair. Particularly in giving licences to the media, the allocation of institutional advertising and the far from balanced coverage of political events.

5. Trevor
   November 25th 2008 10:54

   What I love is the naivety: Every time some quite obvious nutter gets up and says he’s going to save the world, he can steal and oppress just about as much and as long as he wants as long as he always remembers to say that he is doing it on behalf of the people and that he is of the left.

   Those who regard themselves of the right (I don’t) have broadly speaking learnt that Francoist autarky and Pinochetista helicopter drops are neither cool nor effective, but a large proportion those who label themselves of the left (I don’t, usually) are still struggling to apply historical memory to the present.

6. David
   November 26th 2008 03:14

   “Ni izquierdas ni derechas: España entera!”

   José Antonio Primo de Rivera

   22 December 1935, Frontón Betis, Seville

7. Trevor
   November 26th 2008 09:29

   Oh dear, I hope you’re not going to shoot me too. I’ve got the shopping to do this morning.

   Seriously, JA was talking about a monolithic state subordinate to a leading man or idea, of the kind Lorca seems to have wished for and the Swedes actually got, whereas what I’m interested in is a society constructed bottom-up and capable of change. I believe Boynamedsue has the complete blueprint.