bil

Not when it comes to politics. If I had to vote, it would still be Labour, because while they are ALL CNUTS, I trust the tories least by a small margin.

Bigger Jim

In the US certain States permit the use of deadly force on perpertrators running away from the scene of a burglary.

In other States it is a criminal offence to use deadly force if the perp has left the scene of a burglary.

How does that relate to Spanish law.

Jim

JuanSolo

Many people say, when asked, that corruption is because of the politicians, local or national. Because of the authorities or because of the entrepreneurial. On this subject, they get angry, upset, resigned and so; but at last they put the blame on others. Most of the times this moaning people don't respect the speed limits, they park on second row, evade taxes and buy counterfeit and/or smuggled commodities.

When you expose them this contradiction they often get mad on you, arguing that there's no point of comparison: they only take a little advantage and they harm nobody.

Just a little but meaningful example: When I was attending university, I was involved in student associations. During a casual meeting at lunchtime, someone asked to the group if someone of the presents would take a huge amount of public money, provided that it's sure they would never be caught and therefore prosecuted by any means.

There were 20 of us and 17 people admitted they would do it. I remember the number because it was very shocking to me. Some of them stressed that they would do it only if there were no chance of being caught, and some of them told that they would take their chances if there were little risk.

When asked why, almost everyone alleged that the main reason to do that was because if they didn't do it, someone else would, so they preferred to be the clever one instead of the dummy one. Simply appalling.

This happened twenty years ago. Now those people are supposed to be in responsibility positions. Just frightening.

In Spain the public stuff 'belongs to nobody' instead of belonging to all of us. The former ministry of Culture, Carmen Calvo, said "Estamos manejando dinero público, y el dinero público no es de nadie." (We are handling public money, and the public money belongs to nobody) when interviewed by a Spanish national newspaper. Sky didn't collapse on the floor. Ms Calvo isn't the only Spaniard with that belief, you only have to peek urban furniture or children's parks and how all these stuff is blatantly mistreated by ones and others.

We cannot forget that the politicians we have don't come from Mars, they are Spaniards and come from the people: entrepreneurial, civil servants, workers, etc. grown in Spanish families so they are part of the People.

There's no point in lying to ourselves, it's a cultural matter. Perhaps it is improving, but at a very slow pace to my taste.

That part of the Spanish culture is very hard to me to bear, and it is one of the main (if not the main) reasons for me to attempt leaving Spain.

Before someone falls into the temptation of warning me about the corruption in UK, please read this interesting paper in which is stated that Spain is ranked 52th and the UK is ranked 125th out of 146 countries. (the higher rank the higher corruption)

The high value of the above document is that a study of indirect variables (evidence from diplomatic parking tickets) fits exactly on the perception of corruption list.

Lynn R

Juan Solo, your remarks about the attitude of many Spanish people towards public money and public assets struck a chord with me.

When I moved here, there was a guarderia opposite my house which was closed down as they moved to larger premises. One day (late afternoon/early evening) I was shocked to see that it had been broken into and a large number of local people (most of whom I would have said were respectable families, and they included mothers holding their children by the hand) were coming out with armfuls of whatever they could carry, ranging from pots and pans to a large gas cooker that it took 4 women to carry away! I phoned the police to report it.

At the time I was doing a inter-cambio with a Spanish guy who has his own successful business. I went off that evening to meet him and was telling him about this and how horrified I was by it, and he just shrugged and said, yes, it's normal, it's stuff that nobody wants any more!

Many people don't seem to bother either about rubbish being dumped in the streets or people not picking up their dog's mess, they just walk past it in the street and look at me as if I'm mad if a make a remark about how dirty it is. Yet they keep their own houses immaculate, I can't understand how they can bear things outside to be such a mess.

twistedmelon

I sadly have to agree. The corruption has got so much worse and the shambles of a legal system is only adding to the increase of corruption and there seems no will to address the problem.

I don't think dog pooh comes under the HRA