I used to take politics quite seriously but then I came to live in Spain. However it is now getting even funnier. Over the last two weeks I’ve been noticing that the parties in Spain are tending to ramp up the possibilities of lying to new extremes. In my opinion this is all happening because the PP managed to win the last elections with a total lie. That’s ultra huge lie was the manifesto, because everything they said they were going to do then they have actually done the opposite since.
Therefore I think what they have done now is set up a department within the PP called the ‘Taking the Piss department’. The job of the Taking the Piss department is to say ever more outlandish things and see how it is reported and laugh at people who believe it.
Let’s give a couple of examples should we because it doesn’t only involve the politicians themselves, oh no that would be too easy. It involves their supporters too. Of course there is the possibility that they are mentally deficient but I believe that. Really it must be just because they know of the existence of Taking the Piss department and the rest of us don’t.
So first in the cornucopia of ridiculous affirmations this week was the editor of one of the biggest PP supporting newspapers who was on a debate programme on Spanish TV. I only became aware of this because on twitter it became a trending topic of the ridiculous things he was actually saying and possibly pretending to believe. However we know the truth, he is a member of the Taking the Piss department.
He actually said, and you can check this out if you want, that a Jaguar car that was given to the wife of a politician cannot be considered a bribe because, and I quote,
“…it was not top of the range and was an ugly car anyway.”
You decide by the way
Is The Jaguar Car Ugly?
Now if we are to propose that be Taking the Piss department doesn’t exist we have to assume that he maybe actually has a mindset that believes what he is saying. Obviously that is totally impossible. Come on, surely nobody can believe that that is not a bribe right?
Various other affirmations caught my eye this week all of them absolutely ridiculous until it got to the stage where I thought that it could be certain that the Taking the Piss department existed. And then this morning it was confirmed as a total certainty.
One of the newspapers had a headline this morning which stated
“The PP plan to teach finance in schools in order to avoid fraud“
Now when you read that, at first sight it may not seem to be an outlandish statement. However if you actually know anything about the PP and their excellent record on fraud you will realise that this is straight out of the Taking the Piss department. Only last weekend it was revealed that the ex treasurer of the PP for many years had €22 million in an offshore bank account in Switzerland and had “Regularized” €10 million Euros in the fiscal amnesty given by the PP to the fraudsters last year (In which the Head of the largest Spanish bank and his daughter who runs the UK operation also decided now it was time to bring some money back into the country at a cost of just 10% tax).
However the treasurer also provided envelopes to various high-ranking members of the PP of varying amounts ranging from €5000 up to €15,000 per month (Yes, per month) as an extra. This has been confirmed by various ex and current members of the PP and retired politicians including the ex-deputy head of the AP, the Alianza Popular, which was the predecessor of the PP. However the Taking the Piss department has decided that all politicians who are currently in power in the PP know nothing about this strangely. Additionally they have decided that they will do an internal audit of all the books to prove it. Yes, you heard right, an internal audit of the books in order to find black money that is by definition off the books. Another action straight out of the Taking the Piss Department of course.
Now I am not saying that the PP is the only corrupt party in Spain, far from it, all of the other main parties are probably just as corrupt when they are in power as has been proved at a regional level and in the past by the PSOE. However what I am saying is they are certainly the first party to actually create a Taking the Piss department in order to have a laugh.
This is how I imagine they work. Four blokes, and yes they will be blokes, sit around the table all morning deciding what would be the most outlandish thing that they can get any spokesman or supporter of the party to say (and also the spokeswomen of course). Once they have decided what is the most ridiculous thing they are going to affirm that day they then draw out of a hat who will be the unfortunate victim who has to say it and defend it with their life. This person is then told to give a press conference in which they confirm what has being planned earlier. The spokespeople are not allowed to smile, and must deadpan the delivery at all times as if what they were saying were totally serious.
They then invite all of the journalists in Spain to go to that press conference. This is done in order to see how many of them will be incredulous when they hear the story. At this point they then open a book and take bets on how many journalists will swallow the story. The majority of journalists will accept it without any question and publish in the newspapers and magazines exactly what the government says with no investigation and no questioning. There may be an odd journalist who will say “you are joking aren’t you?”.
If this happens the Taking the Piss department have failed in their job for the day. After all their job is to make sure that everybody just swallows this rubbish, they don’t want any dissenting voices.
If there is more than one difficult question then the Taking the Piss department join together later in the day in order to make up another outlandish lie. Bigger, better, more ridiculous This is done because their reputation depends on people swallowing all of the crap that they are fed all day and every day without question.
I can hear some of you saying now why would a government department do this? Well the truth is that if people believe the massively ridiculous lies then they will believe anything and you let them do anything. So in the end the Taking the Piss department is the most important department in the government and it can’t be denied it exists surely. Can it?
