TILTING AT WINDMILLS: THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST

Friday, September 25, 2009

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST

I have been reading a report in the Gibraltar Chronicle on an interview the veteran leader of the GSLP Joe Bossano gave to Andalucía Información.

Now the 72-year-old politician had announced that the last election would be his swan song as leader so a new talent has to step forward. The Chronicle quotes him as saying that a future new leader of the GSLP will be responsible for the decisions that he takes, just as he himself is now, but points out that if at any moment that leader “takes a crazy decision, it will be good that there is somebody with experience to advise him.”

Well the most likely inheritor of Joe Bossano’s crown is the opposition big beast Fabian Picardo although Gilbert Lucadi and others may dispute that. However Joe Bossano’s remarks seem to conjure up the spectre of him hovering at his successor’s shoulder giving “helpful advice”.

I am of the school that believes that when a political leader leaves the stage he or she should not sneak off to the prompter’s booth or heckle from the stalls. Going should mean just that - going. The majority of Britain’s party leaders of the past half century managed the feat with the exception of Ted Heath who haunted Margaret Thatcher like the Ghost of Christmas Past to his dying day.

There is however a problem with the GSLP. Gibraltar’s socialist party is very much the personal fiefdom of Joe Boss, its founder. There is a large percentage of people on the Rock who would never vote for the GSLP because they cannot abide Bossano. Equally there is another chunk of the population that votes GSLP solely because he is the leader. The day he is taken out of the equation it is difficult to know which way the voters will jump.

It will help the next leader of the GSLP if him or her can win the general election and hence become chief minister. Although Joe Bossano led the government in the late 1980s and early 1990s he has lost four elections on the trot. If Picardo or others can snatch the Rock’s top job Joe Boss can be shoved in to the background. Fail and he will be at their shoulder till his dying day.

When I passed the GSLP HQ the other day I am sure I heard the faint rattle of chains.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: Some would argue that we have heard enough from Mr Bossano over the years as it is...; September 25, 2009 at 4:46 PM
Anonymous said...: Hi Sancho - I've always liked your choice of pictures.; September 26, 2009 at 6:22 PM

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TILTING AT WINDMILLS

Sancho Panza is much less learned but a good deal saner than his master.

"At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that are on that plain.

"Fortune," said Don Quixote to his squire, as soon as he had seen them, "is arranging matters for us better than we could have hoped. Look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants rise up, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes. For this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth."

"What giants?" said Sancho Panza.

"Those you see there," answered his master, "with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long."

"Look, your worship,'' said Sancho. "What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turned by the wind make the millstone go."

"It is easy to see," replied Don Quixote, "that you are not used to this business of adventures. Those are giants, and if you are afraid, away with you out of here and betake yourself to prayer, while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat."”