Editorial: No more

THIS week the Duke of Palma, the former leader of the Balearic government and a national minister for the Environment, Jaume Matas, and various senior officials in his old administrations are facing long jail terms for alleged embezzlement of public funds. A member of the royal family, a senior politician and other former officials from the Balearic ministry for tourism are all going to go on trial. Now, the story obviously made headline news this week but it wasn´t a major talking point because Spain is now accustomed to alleged corruption cases. If this story had broken ten years ago i would have caused a major sensation and probably brought the country to a standstill. But times have changed and Spain is living with corruption with hundreds of officials from across the country facing trial and even imprisonment. At the moment there are at least eight former members of the local government in Palma prison. Infact, there is a rather cruel joke which states that Palma prison  now has its own political wing! Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has gone on record as saying that Spain is not a corrupt country and there are few rotten apples. Well perhaps he is right. But these corruption cases show Spain in a very poor light. The quicker they are brought to trial and resolved,  the better. The corruption cases have pushed the ruling Partido Popular into third place in the latest opinion polls and they are expected to be punished by voters at the next local elections. I think Rajoy should be doing more to clean-up Spanish politics. He also must ensure that there is no repeat of all these cases.