GIBRALTAR NOTEBOOK
Keeping its head above water
IAN LYON
Tug-of-war
'Since we lost the Spanish brothels, life's been rather tense.' A spring day. The tem- perature well into the sixties. A policeman dressed in the severe style of the London bobby, all .uniform and chin, breaks into a flow of Spanish as the traffic snarls up under a sign announcing 'Yorkshire fish and chips'. These are the tensions of Gibraltar. Most of the people speak Spanish amongst them- selves and now they are cut off from family and friends five minutes' walk away, since the Spanish closed the frontier. And thus cut off from the looser ladies of La Linea as well. There is the tug-of-war between a Spanish culture and loyalty to Britain. In 1967 the Gibraltarians voted overwhelmingly to retain their present links with the United Kingdom. The voting went : 12,138 for the status quo, and forty-four to join with Spain. Since the closure of the frontier, the British links have been used to boost the tourist revenues of the colony. It's not just fish and chips; there are over 130 bars in its 21 square miles and they bear such names as the Masons' Arms, the Bull and Bush; the City Tavern.
Under the Chief Minister, Major Bob Peliza, Gibraltar's ruling party has been strongly associated with a campaign to achi- eve complete integration with the UK—econ- omically and politically. Peliza's critics con- tend that the idea of integration has scared away potential hotel developers fearful of having to endure UK taxation rates. At pre- sent, the colony enjoys the reputation of a 'tax haven'. There are concessions for com- panies incorporated there and registered as 'exempt', so non-residents can enjoy freedom from income tax and death duties. There is a flat annual fee for this, payable in advance.
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