Dawn

Dawn

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

I see that a channel especially for gays - The Pink Channel – has been launched in France. Here in Spain, the adjective ‘pink’ is most commonly used for the dire magazines and programmes which deal in celebrity gossip. Mind you, every one of the latter has a camp homosexual among its panel of six or eight nonentities so I suppose there’s a link.

More seriously, up here in Galicia, the fragile health of the geriatric President of the local government – Manuel Fraga – has unleashed a civil war in the local branch of the national party he founded, the Partido Popular. Mr Fraga has said that he will stand for another term in 2005 [when he will be 83] and has hinted that, if re-elected, he will die with his boots on. The risk of local implosion is such that Madrid – despite ridicule in the national press – has backed Fraga as the only candidate capable of restoring unity and winning the election. This seems like something of an admission to me. And I suspect things are now so desperate that, if Fraga kicks it before the elections, he will - like El Cid - be sent into battle propped up on a horse. The risk would then be that the horse would get more votes.

Spain has a big problem with illegal Moroccan immigrants arriving on the south coast in rafts, many of them dead. But it surprised me to learn today that these comprise only 10% of illegals from that country. The rest arrive with French visas. So, it’s not only the UK which receives refugees posted on, as it were, from France. Sometimes you just have to admire the French for their total lack of principle.

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