‘Decoy policing’ is corrupt; so is fleecing motorists

THE problems with politicians are their inability to anticipate consequences.

Let me explain: if when using a road I meet highway robbers I am unlikely to use the road again.

Sure my neighbours here in Spain broke the law by parking on a yellow line. They weren’t causing an obstruction. For many months they had done so with impunity so it was reasonable to assume a blind eye.

The local cops often refreshed themselves at the bar overlooking these transgressions then out of the blue they scooped the lot. I am sure I will get the holier than thou brigade screeching, ‘if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.’

Fine but decoy policing is corrupt; so is fleecing motorists for a tidy total of €169 for a minor infringement. It is a nice profit if you can get it. What they won’t get are tourists who don’t like being the victims of political stings.

It’ll cost them more in the long run.

When coughing up I was part of that day’s queue of ripped off visitors and residents. My query as to how many were nabbed each week merited a blank stare.

Get a letter like this in a UK tabloid and Spain kisses goodbye to a few more thousand spending tourists. Councillors take note.

AS one of Spain’s talking heads says the country is heading back towards the ‘national Catholic state’, it emerges that a Murcia judge found himself in the dock and fined €3,000 for ‘insulting single mothers, homosexuals and immigrants.’

The unnamed judge used expletives in court when commenting on these groups. He used profanities when referring to same sex couples; described single mothers as whores and expressed the view that immigrants marrying Spaniards were doing so ‘just to get the nationality.’

The sitcoms can’t compete with courtroom theatre on that scale.

GENOCIDE by other means it seems. Social engineering is not to the taste of Cardinal Archbishop Antonio Varela. He used a gathering of tens of thousands assembled in Madrid’s Plaza Colon to attack the Socialist Party; to demand repeal of legislation that provides for abortion and same sex marriage. His was quite an affair; the altar was 68 metres long and the Calvary cross 12 metres high. He says abortion and euthanasia was a deeper crisis for Europe than the economy or politics. In many parts of Europe abortion outnumbers live births. Backed by 30 bishops he claimed that UNESCO’s aim was to control population growth by making same sex relationships conventional with an aim to ‘make half the population homosexual within 20 years.’ I suppose this and abortion is less controversial than more traditional forms of genocide, deportation and forced emigration.