Much ado about the same stupid things: Gibraltar vs corruption

GIBRALTAR (+Opinion) -- Gibraltar was in the news again over the summer. And now again, though less so, while La Línea builds a new entrance to the Rock – construction for which is likely to take a while and never be quite finished, more for political than practical reasons. Anything so long as it gets on the nerves of Gibraltarians, say some of the more truculent.

Did I say news? Nothing new under the Southern Spanish sun: the dispute over the waters in the bay go back to the Treaty of Utrecht (1713); the fishing dispute goes back to who knows when; the environmental argument goes back about a year when cement blocks began to be thrown into the waters, but have only now been thrown into the political ring; the threat of border closure was a reality for a number of years, but the threat of a toll is fairly new (remember the previous Mayor of La Línea?). Indeed, it was closed for a good few years under the Franco dictatorship. I know, I was here then – it was not a good time to live close to Gibraltar holding a British passport.

But here's the thing, the PP's corruption scandals in Madrid, while not exactly news, are getting louder by the minute, and those involving the PSOE in Andalucía are about to come to a head any minute, and more emerging from all parties, seemingly by the minute: there is a desperate need for diversionary tactics. Not to mention Cameron's wielding his ministers against a large swathe of British society in general - they could do with diversionary tactics, maybe no one will notice any more cutbacks and such. Come to think of it, Rajoy in Madrid might find these useful as well. But he’s too busy watching events in Scotland and wondering how either outcome there will impact his own separatist crisis in Catalonia.

Also, August has only just passed, a slow news month, lots of the better journalists were on holiday, the youngster ones are not too sure what the word 'news' means, and their senior editors are also away. What better time to rattle sabres about the persistent bugbear of the Campo de Gibraltar (including the Rock)?

And just in case anyone doubts the significance of the Rock, we have the Spanish Foreign Minister uttering the stupidest things: 'The party's over for Gibraltar' or '6000 Gibraltarians in Sotogrande don't pay taxes' - take your pick and give your choice a score of 1 to 10 on the stupidity scale.

For his part, Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo might have been better advised to refrain from identifying the Spanish government with that of North Korea. That is a stupid comparison, probably because Spain is not developing nuclear weapons that we know of.

If experience is of any value, the whole thing will blow over as soon as more sensible people get back into their editorial chairs on both sides of the threatened frontier, and a whole host of rotten-to-the-core politicians are jailed or at least tossed out (they're very unlikely to resign). Or the important part of the world has something to write about - let's face it, in the grand scheme of things, how important is Gibraltar?

In the meantime, the trembling masses working for the gambling industry on Gibraltar, or the Spanish workers who are lucky enough to have a job at all, even if it's in 'enemy territory' (not their enemy, certainly), or the thousands of summer tourists wanting to see the sights but daren't go in by car (and off whom a vast proportion of the 30,000 residents of the Rock make an excellent living), play into the various politicians' games.