I first heard the Spanish word 'enchufe' when I was studying in the country many years ago. It literally means 'plug' but is more commonly used to mean having the right connections, particularly if you're looking for a job.
People there were quite open about it and would ask if you had any 'enchufe' if you were after a post or a particular service.
They don't talk about it with such candour in the Conservative party where the current government operates under the unspoken rules of an old boys' network where they look after their own.
If you had any doubt, just look at the quagmire surrounding the appointment of the current chairman of the BBC, Richard Sharp, who's currently under investigation over claims he was instrumental in getting a hefty loan for Boris Johnson.
According to the Sunday Times, Sharp's first wife, Victoria is now married to an investment banker whose advisory firm hired George Osborne, the former Chancellor, two years ago.
Rishi Sunak worked for Sharp at Goldman Sachs and once advised him to stay out of politics as he considered him ill equipped for such a "dirty business".
But it wasn't too dirty for Sharp, who was rich enough to become a major donor to the Conservative party, supporting Johnson's campaign to become mayor of London and dining at a private members' club in Mayfair, with Nadhim Zahawi, among others.
He was a shoe-in for the chairmanship of the BBC – a political appointment – because he was the favoured candidate of then PM, good old Boris Johnson. And wasn't it cosy that at around that time, he'd arranged for a "distant cousin", Sam Blyth, founder of a Canada-based chain of private schools, to guarantee an £800,000 credit facility for Johnson? It's what cousins do, surely.
He protests his innocence of all wrongdoing and Johnson says Sharp "knows nothing about my personal finances – I can tell you that for ding-dang sure".
Then it emerges that Britain's top civil servant, Simon Case, sent Johnson a letter warning him to stop asking his advice about personal financial matters as he was soon to be announced as BBC chairman.
It was all due to be investigated by the commissioner for public appointments, William Shawcross, er... whose daughter Eleanor is Sunak's head of policy. Shawcross recused himself from the investigation a day after the Sunday Times article appeared, suddenly remembering he had met Sharp on a number of occasions. Strange that it took a whole week for his memory to be jogged.
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THREE years on from the UK's act of self-destruction and the Brexiteers are trying to suggest it's all going well and the sunlit uplands promised by Jacob Rees-Mogg are just around the corner. Never mind that awkward IMF forecast that the UK is the only economy set to shrink this year – even lagging behind economically-sanctioned Russia.
Even the government's own Office for Budget Responsibility says Brexit is set to shrink the potential size of the UK economy by 4 per cent, with its trading potential set to fall by 15 per cent in the long term.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies director, Paul Johnson, described Brexit as an "own goal" and polls say a majority of leavers are now experiencing buyers' remorse.
But it seems like the economic decline is matched by the decline in the integrity of those at the top with Sunak, the hapless leader who bleats about honesty in office. What a crew.
When Johnson claims Putin personally threatened to kill him in a missile attack in the days leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many are inclined to believe the Kremlin's denial, which speaks volumes about how trust in the Tory political class has disintegrated. And that's for ding-dang sure.
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NOW hands up all of you who had a little snigger when you read that Marie Kondo, the Japanese guru of house tidying, has abandoned trying to make her own house a clutter-free zone.
The queen of clean has confessed that she has "kind of given up tidying" since the birth of her third child.
"My home is messy, but the way I am spending my time is the right way for me at this stage in my life," she says.
As one who bought her book in a hopeless quest to turn chaos into order by following her regime, the news that even she has surrendered has certainly sparked joy in my heart.
