Whilst politicians reach ecstasy splitting hairs, sifting semantics and distilling words, the word on the street is always a little different.

On Friday, as I darted on foot between the endless strands of moaning traffic I noticed a funeral entourage caught, static, along North Mole. Mourners trapped in an anxious moment and faced with a long journey to St Theresa’s.

 

The taxi driver in the vanguard of the procession - you must have noticed that in recent years the traffic has made our taxi drivers a distinctly stressed profession – took a verbal shortcut to writing a Letter to the Editor. He caught my eye and with a powerful tenor bellowed out “Cuchame, el trylátero!”

He summed up, poetically, and vented, accurately, the feelings of all around him. These frustrations are repeated daily, normally from 4pm on, but earlier on Friday as Gibraltar approached a weekend with a bridge on it, so to speak.

This is not the gloomy chorus from the Opposition apparently seated on the steps waiting for its enemies to fall and be carried past them. Then again they’re used to waiting. And it could be a long wait.

But people in the street genuinely want to know what is happening. Why does the frontier not flow faster? Are things really moving on with Spain, are there problems brewing or are we caught in a mutually acceptable stasis. Actually, the latter would not be a bad state of affairs. They also want to know where the economy is taking us.

Yes, Joe average is feeling the pinch - recession, the low value of sterling, seemingly limited options for the new generation of employees.

Vehicular traffic is not easily solved, in fact it is never going to be really solved to everyone’s satisfaction. Even when the Government’s traffic solutions are seen through there will always be peak hour traffic to which the only response can be ‘walk if you can’.

However, the traffic issue risks becoming the sort of straw camels should avoid.

That is to say one solution to the traffic is also un-jamming unrelated areas of activity in Gibraltar. Moving things that can be moved.

On the big issues Gibraltar needs strong leadership, and it has it. Part of the response to traffic, and indeed relations with Spain, is that the ‘users’ have to alter their own expectations and approach. That is what happens everywhere.

The success of the trilaterals, for us, is surely measured by having the best possible relations with Spain without paying an unacceptable price. Unreasonable delays at the frontier are unacceptable but the reality is that even if there were no delay, at the frontier there would be some problem times. Faster flow would most likely attract more volume and so on.

We will never have everything, but we can live with the best balance.

Meanwhile, people, especially those employed in the private sector, are deep down concerned about big issues like jobs, pensions and the opportunities they might find to move ahead in life. Young people returning looking for a job and a mortgage.

The Government should be aware that it has generated a sense that nothing can be done without a say so from the top. That has to be true for some issues but generally it risks becoming an excuse for people further down the chain not to take responsibility for decisions in their gift.

Gibraltar, internally, needs to have an environment which gives ideas space to breathe and doers to move. No. 6 needs to create a ‘ring road’ to which more minor issues that do not need to pass through that office can be re-routed.

We need to get on with ensuring our society has dynamics be it in business getting done or the debate of issues that affect us.

Whilst the relationships with Spain remain stable it will be domestic issues that will make or break the next election. That is where expectations are focused today. Not all roads lead to Cordoba.