Jobs For The Boys

Apologies for lateness - internet woes!

According to the "Urban Dictionary", "bish bosh" means "an improper or unfinished piece of work due to laziness", while "bish bash bosh" describes "the efficiency of a process you have just explained" as in one, two, three steps, it's as simple as that, bish bash bosh.

I don't know, on the one hand, that laziness is a fair criticism, but there was some unfinished work at the Balearics education ministry. It does, on the other hand, appear to be a case of being as simple as that in securing another post in Balearics government circles for those who leave unfinished work behind. To what and to whom am I referring? What else and who else than "The Return Of The Mighty Bosch" (or maybe Boosh would make more sense).

Bish bash bosh, simple as that, Bosch is back. Job's a good 'un. Unlike the job that wasn't a good 'un at the education ministry and which resulted in the Mighty Bosch being given his P45 and replaced by someone likely to be more amenable to following the government's education language policy. The presidential ink barely dry on the dismissal notice and Rafael Bosch has found new gainful employment - this time at the newly-created ministry for the economy and competitiveness. He is to be an advisor on competitiveness. Good for him.

WARNING, WARNING, cliché coming up. Jobs in government are like the managerial merry-go-round in the Premier League (the merry-go-round being the cliché in case you aren't up to speed with footballspeak). Bosch is to the Balearics Government as Mark Hughes is to the Premiership. No use at QPR, for some inexplicable reason he gets the gig at Stoke City. All jobs for the boys or, in Hughes's case, having a persistent agent.

Rafael probably doesn't have an agent and he doesn't seem to need one. Just hangs around the corridors at the Consolat de Mar and waits for the first competitiveness-advisory task to be cobbled together into the form of a job description. And presumably, competitiveness in the Balearics isn't dependent upon a language policy. If it were, then there would surely have been no advisory role for Rafael. But then, is there not at least some element of language that plays a part in Balearics competitiveness? Is Castellano not a language that offers the potential for greater competitiveness? Hmm. Can the Catalanist Bosch (Catalanist according to the Círculo Balear's strongly anti-Catalanist Jorge Campos, that is) be trusted to pursue competitiveness with full Castellano vigour? I'm sure he can be.

Rafael having found a way of being able to continue to pay the mortgage, what of others who were recently shuffled out of the Bauzá cabinet? Will they also be returning? What role might there be for Josep Aguiló, who was ostensibly in charge of competitiveness before getting the heave-ho? Governmental advisor for paper clips and staples perhaps?

Perhaps Bosch might help the new boy at competitiveness, Joaquín García, make more of a fist of things than Aguiló did. For the ex-minister, competitiveness appeared to amount to little more than lowering wages but any failings he had in competitiveness terms weren't really his fault. He was also bean-counter-in-chief, and so looking after the centimos was his main priority. Bauzá was right to recognise that Aguiló's portfolio was too broad and so has created separate ministries - one for the economy and one for bean-counting - but the consequence of this is that the new bean-counter-in-chief, José Marí, is going to have the count the half a million euros more cost of the various new jobs for the boys, of which Bosch's is one.

And among these new jobs is provision for not one but two press officers for García (the other new and separate ministry is social services which have been spun out of the health portfolio). Two press officers? Why are two press officers needed? What does even one of them do? Is the Balearic Government so vast that it requires all these press people knocking around the place in the different ministries?

The opposition has, naturally enough, latched onto the fact that Bosch's appointment is representative of an increase and not a decrease in public spending on governmental posts. Austerity for some but not for others. Perceptions, perceptions, always perceptions. There may be sound reasons for these new appointments but there is an unmistakable feeling that these reasons may include jobs for the boys.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.


Index for May 2013

Aina Cifre: Pollensa painter - 25 May 2013
Alchemy - 18 May 2013
Balearic Government cabinet re-shuffle and new jobs - 3 May 2013, 31 May 2013
Blue flags - 24 May 2013
Catalan and Mallorquín - 21 May 2013
Chemists and tourists - 23 May 2013
Diplocat and Catalonian independence - 1 May 2013
ESRA flower show - 17 May 2013
Gibraltar and UEFA - 26 May 2013
Ironman in Alcúdia: inconveniences - 12 May 2013
King's royal yacht - 19 May 2013
Low-cost tourism - 4 May 2013
Magalluf troubles - 7 May 2013
Majorca Daily Bulletin: MBE award dinner - 11 May 2013
Manacor-Artà train - 6 May 2013
Naturism in Mallorca - 5 May 2013
President Bauzá's secretary - 20 May 2013
Protests over beach matters - 27 May 2013
Puerto Alcúdia beach path asphalt - 8 May 2013
Religious studies and education reform - 30 May 2013
Roads: unused and unfinished - 16 May 2013
Rumours and hotels - 28 May 2013
Salvador Dalí - 10 May 2013
Seasonality and winter tourism - 13 May 2013
Senegalese man dies of TB - 14 May 2013, 29 May 2013
Tax and mistrust - 22 May 2013
Tenancy act revision and holiday lets - 9 May 2013, 15 May 2013
Tourism promotion and Balearics' island councils - 2 May 2013