El que manda no manda, my dear
I say, you will have heard que los nenes del GSLPee dicen que el que manda no manda y el que manda son ellos.
Que enredo, my dear Cloti. I imaginate que you mean that some young blood have put a political pistol against El Bigote and have told him: Or you do what I say or we resign.
Y El Bigote le dira: If that is your attitude, you only have one choice.
I don't know porque I don't belong to them. Segun dijo un spokesman, out of the 17-strong committee two have resigned, y eso es todo, corazon.
Blimey, con tanto talk de turmoil y disarray me pense que se habia armao el dos de mayo.
Segun nuestro contacto en el M15 y medio, El lngles is not too sure now if to resign or not.
Caramba, who is El Ingles?
My dear, in what world do you live? Don't you know que un tal Feetham has only recently returned to our Gibraltar after spending most of his adult life in the Mother Country?
Caramba, que pica le ha entrao a este? La bulla del ingles, I imaginate. Despues que los otros dos resigned, it would be unfair si ahora le dejan tirao.
Mind you, hay gente who think que los partidos have to renovate, aunque hay que usar cierto tacto, my dear, porque tiene guasa que he who has given a lifetime a la causa le digan que se valla de casa.
My Charlie dice que algunos sympathisers del cambio are saying que the whole thing has been handled rather badly by los nenes. A quien mas ayuda crear divisions en el opposition es al Governation, so el Chief Mini must be laughing all the way to No. 6 every day.
Te dire que mi Juan, cuando se entero que Bishop had resigned, se creyo que nos habiamos quedao sin obispo, aunque as far as I know Father Caruana todo To que hiso was to go to give a speech in La Linea.
Bueno hija, no lie la cosa mas porque bastante lia que esta. Adios white flower.
Adios mi alma, y que sea un Holy Week!

Point of View

An Educational Reason for the Change of School Hours or Just for Votes?

by Steven Linares

Opposition spokesman on Education

In the light of Government not having a clear educational or social reason for the change of school hours, the opposition believes that come September 2001 and once the change is implemented, working parents will find themselves having to make arrangements for their children to be collected and supervised from 2.30 pm, 3.00 pm or 3.30 pm to 5.00 pm.
With this scenario teachers could find themselves confronted with problems that are not of their making and then be criticised by parents.
The way this GSD government is handling the issue of the change is only for their political expediency, rather than on legitimate social, economical and educational grounds. The latter being the way any responsible Government should do it.
We must remind you that the Minister of Education Dr. Bernard Linares was not in favour of the change when he was Headteacher of Bayside and he argued against this happening. One of the reasons that he used to put forward was that children should have a hot meal with all the family at lunchtimes.
Now this does not bother him and all he offers is an “adequate place for children to be able to have their packed lunches”.
The GSD Government has not put forward social or educational arguments that justify the change. They have reacted to the change only because they were confronted with the New Deal package put forward by the Alliance during the election campaign. Their reaction was to include the fact that they committed themselves to changing the school hours. This sort of attitude from the GSD Government clearly demonstrates that they are only interested in votes and that the Alliance is very much aware of the needs of our community.
Our manifesto promise was and still is the following:
“SUBSIDISED MEALS FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN
School hours will be altered to provide a one-hour lunch break. Parents will then have the option of their children staying at school for supervised lunch. The government will provide subsidised meals with appropriately balanced diets. Consultations on changes for hours will be carried out taking into account the needs of working parents and of traffic.”
The Chief Minister accused the opposition of being irresponsible for presenting the New Deal Package because we were going to cripple the economy with things that carry running costs. Does this mean that the change they are going ahead with, come September 2001 will not incur running costs? If this is the case then it is clear that Government are not prepared to invest properly for the change.

Conclusion
The fact of the matter is that Government is going to change the school hours, which we welcome, but without properly looking or analysing the educational, economical and social value of the change. They are going ahead with it because it is popular and they were forced to put it on the manifesto. Come September 2001 the problems that will arise as stated on this paper will have to be solved by parents and teachers as best they can!
After analysing the social, educational and economical value of the move the Alliance has come to the conclusion that proper planning is needed. We are therefore committing ourselves to providing the needs of a modern changing society in a proactive manner. This will take the form of providing canteen facilities and co-ordinating activities for all after school hours. It will help working parents, especially women and more importantly benefit all children in order to develop educational, social and personal skills. In a society that should be striving to improve the quality of life there should be open debate as to how we achieve this. Our society has changed with more women on the job market and their needs must be met in order for us to prosper.

The Armando LaGrande column

Prohibited zones!

Just imagine if you have the looks of a matutera(!) and you decide to park yourself at the new prohibited zones at the frontier, you can be pushed about by authority!
All this to stop the matuteras from carting their goods across the frontier.
Is there no other way of doing this? Are we going to be frightened even to step on a pavement?
The spectacle that can ensue at the frontier with the matuteras is not prime time viewing. Something ought to be done, but the idea of imposing restrictions on movement if it so happens you are deemed by a cop to look like a matutera does not seem to be that right.
And if they keep bringing down the number of cartons you can take with you, we could end up having Moorish Castle overcrowded with genuine tourists whose only crime was to buy more than 3 cartons to take back as gifts.
Not only that but the freedom zealously held by British citizens (that includes us) to leave one's country by any point is going to be withdrawn. Would people in the UK accept such a restriction of their freedom?
If matuteras and others are leaving Gibraltar by going through holes on the fence the answer is not to take draconian measures against everyone else. The answer is to ensure that there are no holes.
One way of doing this, some might say, is to build a brick wall all along the line of frontier.

Solution for Spain

Spain's solution to the tobacco is simply to lower their exorbitant duties on tobacco products.
What we should not contemplate is doing the reverse.., increasing our duties on tobacco and other items because Spain wants to squeeze their own people with hefty duties.
Even Solomon Seruya would agree that we need the lowest prices to sell and remain competitive. Not only that, but as he often rightly said, we need to be different, otherwise why would anyone come here.

Driving you round the bend

Oh dear how can people be expected to put up with such nonsense as having perfectly valid driving licences questioned by the nearest neighbourhood cop?
The licences are acceptable even to our dear friends in the EU, so why cannot the Foreign Office do something positive on behalf of the British people of Gibraltar?
Unless the Foreign Office thinks they are there to protect those who are foreigners...
Enough to drive you round the bend, oh dear!

Gran Hermano, great solution

The only solution to the Gibraltar issue is to give the Spaniards a never-ending dose of the TV programme Gran Hermano.
They will then have nothing else to think about, brother.

Secret papers on Gibraltar

by Joe Garcia

Privileged sector of the Community no more

A UK official, asked for his comments on a memorandum submitted by the Chamber of Commerce in 1970, had this to say:
“This memorandum is presumably a natural reaction from a sector of the Gibraltar community which has in the past been a privileged one and has had things very much its own way, to a situation in which its privileges are going to be reduced and its scale of operations lessened. What the traders would like, of course, is a continuation of the hotel and tourist development policy which enlarged their activities and profits, a continuation of low tax rates, and freedom to import as much labour as possible and not to pay any more than can be helped for it with H.M.G. providing funds for all the extra housing and services needed and making up any budget deficit if necessary.

THE END OF THIS KIND OF LIFE

This kind of life is obviously not going to happen in future, and it is a pity that they are burying their heads in the sand so completely about the realities of the Gibraltar situation and the necessary consequences of labour being in short supply instead of too plentiful. However, it is odd that they so completely ignore the benefits to them of the higher local purchasing power which will follow from better pay and more efficient use of labour. The outlook of the memorandum is a very short-sighted and unintelligent one, and it is also in many respects quite unrealistic, e.g. in suggesting that the implementation of the Marsh interim award might be postponed and that a lot more hotel projects might be started.
TRYING TO INCREASE WAGES IRRESPECTIVE OF PRODUCTIVITY
On the other hand I think they have a case in so far as the Gibraltar Ministers are trying, or are suspected of trying, to get wages up irrespective of productivity by preventing the entry of foreign workers, or of favouring the entry of UK workers, who will obviously expect much higher pay, at the expense of others who are prepared to accept Gibraltarian wage levels. The handling of labour policy is obviously the key to the whole situation, both economically and politically. (I have been following the telegrams about this and as the point is obviously fully recognised I won’t labour it.) 
Like most other things in Gibraltar - where everything interacts on everything else - it will mean following a careful middle way, i.e. not allowing labour in too freely because this will create insuperable accommodation and social problems, and destroy the incentive to use manpower efficiently, but not restricting entry unduly which will make it impossible to have a rational wages policy and will eventually cause all Gibraltar activities to become so costly as to be uncompetitive. And of course the productivity efforts must be pushed on with - and the traders and hotel-keepers need them extremely badly though they will be among the most recalcitrant and difficult recipients.”

Who decides who governs in Gibraltar?

To what extent can Britain decide who governs in Gibraltar? And what do officials mean when they say “....we have some interest in keeping the present administration in?” 
The AACR had lost an election, and the IWBP were in power, when a UK official wrote the following confidential note:
“Politically I should not have thought the situation was not wholly dangerous - the Gibraltar parties (like US Republicans and Democrats) are both mixed alliances and Hassan cannot afford to alienate his labour supporters by giving into the traders; hence the very cautious GLP/AACR resolution. Hassan would be faced with just the same difficulties if he got back, but it seems to me that we have some interest in keeping the present administration in as they seem to be much keener on really solving Gibraltar’s problems, and also to be more efficient. In the present dispute both of the contenders are at the moment using rather extravagant language but i expect there will be a cooling down in due course and the official element can surely help in this.”

Gibraltar ministers wanted to interpret the Constitution “as liberally as before”

After a visit to Gibraltar, senior Foreign Office official, J. S. Bennett, had this to say:
The Governor is not altogether happy with the working of the new (1969) constitution, which he was inclined to say London had wished on him (I gently reminded him that it was wished on both of us by his predecessor). He is under some pressure from his Ministers who apparently argue that this constitution should be interpreted as liberally as they allege the previous one was.
I asked the Governor whether he thought we should tear up the list of defined domestic matters and start again. To my relief, he thought this would be premature. But in order to avoid friction he would like to confine the exercise of his powers to override his Ministers to the more important cases (e.g. as recently over immigrant labour) and to give them their heads in lesser matters where they might feel strongly over something outside their strict constitutional sphere, even if this meant that departments in London would sometimes have to pick up the pieces (e.g., in his view, over International Air Gibraltar).
I had to admit the force of the arguments for such an approach as seen from the Gibraltar end, and the Governor agreed that it would help us in London if when future cases arise he were to give us his own assessment at a rather earlier stage than in the examples he had quoted.

Talk of the Town 

Will the new 'high and mighty' frontier fence get off the ground?

The government is putting together a tender notice to have the frontier fence rebuilt - but will it get off the ground?
Frontier demarcations are highly sensitive and the Gibraltar one particularly so, given the political flashpoints associated with this particular border line. Who owns the frontier fence, anyway - the Gibraltar government, the Foreign Office or the Ministry of Defence? Is it Crown Property in a civil or military capacity?
It is to be expected that the Gibraltar government has cleared the knocking down and rebuilding of the fence with the Foreign Office, as this is a foreign affair fraught with perils of the most unsuspecting kind. The Ministry of Defence have always had a fair input, too, given that they are the guardians of territorial demarcation
Unless the Gibraltar government has cleared such a sensitive issue ahead of the announcement, and the Spaniards have been told in advance as a matter of courtesy, the tampering with the fence is likely to raise eyebrows in Madrid. Of course, the raison d’etre is that the new fence will be an anti-smuggling weapon, so how can Madrid be against?
It was at the turn of the last century that a fence was first erected. This was to protect War Office property and to reduce the number of sentries on the beat all along the frontier line. When the diplomats were approached , it was proposed that Spain might be asked to make concessions in return given that they would benefit by the prevention of smuggling.
Before the chief minister gets the idea of asking Spain for concessions (!), I will hasten to add that the asking of concessions was not proceeded with on 28 July 1908 when the British charge d’affairs in Madrid was instructed to inform the Spanish government, as a matter of courtesy, of the plan to erect the fence. 
The fence was going to be erected “along the British edge of the neutral territory of Gibraltar”, and the Spaniards informed “ to avoid giving any offence to Spanish susceptibilities”. 
The point was made privately that “the use to which it is desired to put British territory is the concern of His Majesty’s Government alone.”
In those days, Anglo-Spanish relations were excellent, but the wiry fence was to become a thorn on the Spanish side. Nowadays, when the Spaniards are capable of picking a quarrel over nothing, the thought of a new fence, of sturdier construction, to be built by the Gibraltar goverment and not the British government, might be too piercing for comfort.
We now have to remove what there is and replace it by the new shiny armour. Particular care will have to be taken that any trench digging is not a millimetre beyond the present line, although the government might agree for a Spanish technician to be present duly equipped with a ruler.
The chief minister is not too sure just yet what design or construction will emerge. Certainly, the wire must be replaced by a more solid parapet that will prevent ingenious minds carving holes through it. You cannot have railings there, as tobacco cartons could easily slid through. It must be high and mighty (like the Berlin Wall?) to prevent any climbing over it. So, any ladder-like construction is out of the question.
It was indeed described as an unclimbable fence 100 years ago; now, it must also be impenetrable in other respects
Although Madrid was at the time told that the fence would be on British territory, when Britain said at the first formal Anglo-Spanish talks on Gibraltar in May 1966 that sovereignty extended to the frontier fence, the Spaniards went up in arms arguing that for the first time Britain was claiming this. On this occasion, the expected lack of tobacco smoke might send the right signals to the warring factions.
As one Latin said to another: Vigilate et orate.
- JOE GARCIA

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