Referendum result
Dear Sir,
Regarding your Viewpoint comment today (19 September), I am from Wales and I really think you should have said British not English.
They have voted to remain British as far as I can understand.
Maybe I missed something along the way; but yes, whether we are English, Welsh, Irish or Scottish, we do share plenty in common and I am proud to be British and glad Scotland is staying with us.
Name withheld by request
Fewer Tourists---More Wealthy Tourists!!
Dear Sir,
Humphrey Carter’s article in Saturday’s Bulletin (20-09-14 ); concerning ‘Fewer Tourists--but more Wealthy Tourists’. Was based on a meeting of The Balearic Confederation of Tourist Employers (CTPTB ).
I was astonished, nay dismayed, by this meetings findings. My experience of so termed “Wealthy Tourists”, is they do NOT spend any money. Unless it is on a Credit Card. Even then, they do not spend in the manner of the annual Holiday Tourists.
However, I was very pleased to see the following statement from this meeting, and I quote -- “And, what was made blatantly clear at the meeting, is that the all inclusive resorts are causing the most damage to the local business community, and even the economy.”
At last!, after several years of my observations that “All Inclusive is destroying the economy”, the Confederation has recognised this obvious problem. But, to state ‘Wealthy Tourists’ are required, is completely mis-guided, and lacks foresight, and more lateral thinking. The Confederation needs to urgently address the very serious damage, all-inclusive is causing, to this Islands business, and its economy.
Yours faithfully,
F.S. Jessop
Sa Coma
Civil servants
Dear Sir,
I’m afraid that I must disagree with Gerry Mulligan when he states in his excellent article that Franco should be solely blamed for the reason there are so many civil servants, known here as funcionarios.
When Franco passed away, the country’s administration was centralized in Madrid, and there were, according to official figures, around 700.000 of them.
The latest data suggests a figure of over 3 million, which, whatever way you look at it, is a massive increase.
In Franco’s days he wasn’t particularly worried about keeping his civil servants happy because they didn’t have a vote.
Nowadays they do, and it would take a brave politician, two words that are not normally used in the same sentence, to try and upset them.
The reason there are so many is because the country’s administration is no longer centralized, far from it, which means that everything is duplicated in each of the regions, and we are paying for it in more ways than one.
If Franco were to resurrect, and I’m pretty sure that the results of a referendum on that subject would be similar to the Scottish ones, he would solve that problem, amongst others, pretty quickly indeed.
Would they be more efficient ? Maybe not, but at least our taxes would go down whilst our satisfaction of knowing that they could be sacked if proved to be surly to customers, would go up.
Simon Tow