The increasingly militant Inspector Gadget police blog complains about “cuts” but he hasn’t seen real budget austerity yet. Spanish style.

TheEye isn’t sure if readers outside of Spain realise exactly how screwed that country really is. La Línea de la Concepción, with a population of 65,000 is the town straight across the border from Gibraltar and is utterly utterly bankrupt.

A quarter of the 100 strong Policia Municipal employed by the cash strapped Ayuntamiento in La Linea are currently on sick leave, municipal sources said yesterday.

Although a number of these officers have been on extended leave going back a whole year, with the proximity with the fair and other festivities, absenteeism on the basis of alleged sick leave has shot up. La Linea political observers have noted that the cause of this can be traced to the fact that municipal employees including policemen, have not been paid their salaries for the past eight months.

This past weekend there was only a minimum police presence in the streets of La Linea which has heightened concerns regarding the safety of the streets and delinquency in the neighbouring city.

On Friday night there was only one police officer on duty covering the entire jurisdiction with another in the police station manning the radio, although at midnight a further two officers reported for duty.

Do you worry that you might get made redundant?

It is understood that some police officers are owed more than E20,000 by Mayor Gemma Araujo’s Ayuntamiento.

Stunning.

At least Inspector Gadget will be pleased that the single police officer on duty carries a gun!

Hat-tip: Gibraltar Chronicle