Pedro Sánchez Talks of Throwing in the Towel

 A far-right agency called Manos Limpias has denounced the wife of the President of Spain for corruption (using newspaper-cuttings as proof). The Court, surprisingly, has taken up the charge.
Pedro Sánchez said late on Wednesday that he had had enough of the bulos and attacks from the far-right and is considering resigning as president.
His final decision on Monday.

I wrote about the background to this in my Business over Tapas weekly bulletin - 

‘The spreader of fake-news Pilar Baselga, a regular in the far-right media and circles, availed herself last week of her right to not testify before the judge investigating the falsehood she launched in November 2022, when she said that Begoña Gómez, the wife of Pedro Sánchez, is a transsexual and was part of a drug trafficking network. As elDiario.es has learned from sources familiar with the statement before a Madrid magistrate, Baselga has now preferred to remain silent…’ Nevertheless, and despite the above, Manos Limpias (a far-right Christian agitator group) has successfully managed to find a judge able to launch an inquiry into Begoña Gómez for corruption. Pedro Sánchez said in the Cortes on Wednesday that “Despite the news that I have just received, despite everything, I continue to believe in the justice-system of my country”.

But late on Wednesday Pedro Sánchez said that he was cancelling his engagements for the next few days and would give his answer on Monday.

He has written a letter to the Spanish public - 

 Madrid, April 24, 2024
Letter to Citizens
It is not usual for me to address you through a letter. However, the severity of the attacks that my wife and I are receiving, and the need to give a calm response, make me think that this is the best way to express my opinion. I thank you, therefore, for taking a little
of your time to read these lines.
As you may already know, a court in Madrid has opened proceedings of charges against my wife, Begoña Gómez, at the request of a far-right organization called Manos Limpias, to investigate alleged crimes of influence peddling and corruption in business.
Apparently, the judge will call those responsible from two digital newspapers that have been publishing on this matter to testify. In my opinion, they are media with a marked right-wing and ultra-right orientation (El Objectivo and probably OKDiario - Lenox). Logically, Begoña will defend her honour and will collaborate with Justice in everything required to clarify facts that are as scandalous in appearance as they are non-existent.
In effect, the complaint by Manos Limpias is based on alleged information from that constellation of ultraconservative headlines referred to above. I emphasize the 'supposed information' because, after its publication, we have gone to some length in denying the falsehoods expressed at the time while Begoña has undertaken legal actions so that these same digital companies rectify what, we maintain, are spurious information.
This strategy of harassment and demolition has been going on for months. Therefore, I am not surprised by the overacting of Sr. Feijóo (PP leader) and Sr. Abascal (Vox leader). In this outrage which is as serious as it is crude, both are necessary collaborators with the far-right digital 'news' galaxy and the Manos Limpias organization. In fact, it was Mr. Feijóo who reported the case to the Office of Conflicts of Interest, calling for me to be disqualified from holding public office for 5 to 10 years.
The complaint was filed twice by said organization, whose officials were later disqualified by the leadership of both the PP and Vox.
Next, they exploited their conservative majority in the Senate promoting a commission of investigation to, as they say, clarify the facts related to this matter. Logically, judicialization was lacking in the case. This is the step they have just taken.
In short, it is a harassment and demolition operation by land, sea and air to try to weaken me politically and personally by attacking my wife.
I'm not naive. I am aware that Begoña is being denounced not because she has done something illegal, they know there is no case, except for being my wife. As I am also fully aware that the attacks I suffer are not my fault as a person but what I represent: a progressive political option, supported election after election by millions of Spaniards, based on economic progress, social justice and democratic regeneration.
This fight started years ago. First, with the defence that we made of the political autonomy of the organization that best represents a progressive Spain:  the Socialist Party. A fight that we won. Second, after the motion of censure and the successive electoral victories of 2019, the sustained attempt to delegitimise the progressive coalition government in the heat of the ignominious meme of  '¡Que te vote Txapote!'. That couldn't break us either.
The last episode was the general elections of July 23, 2023.
The Spanish people voted overwhelmingly for progress, allowing the return of a progressive coalition government, against the coalition government of Sr. Feijóo and Sr. Abascal that the conservative media and demographic batteries predicted.
Democracy spoke, but the right and the extreme right, again, did not accept the electoral result. They were aware that political attacks would not be enough and now they have crossed the line of respect for the family life of a President of the Government and attacks on his personal life.
Without any embarrassment, Sr. Feijóo and Sr. Abascal, and the interests that they
move, have set in motion what the great Italian writer, Umberto Eco, called "the mud machine". That is, trying to dehumanize and delegitimise their political adversary through accusations that are as scandalous as they are false.
This is my reading of the situation that our beloved country is experiencing: a coalition of
right-wing and ultra-right interests that do not tolerate the reality of Spain, that do not accept the verdict of the polls, and that are willing to spread mud to: first, cover up their obvious corruption scandals and inaction before them; second, hide their total absence of a more political project beyond insults and misinformation; and third, to use any means at their disposal to reach and personally and politically destroy their political adversary. This is all about a coalition of right-wing and far-right interests that extends across the main Western democracies, and to which, I guarantee, I will always respond with reason, truth and education.
At this point, the question I legitimately ask myself is, is it worth all this? Sincerely I don't know. This attack is unprecedented, it is so serious and so gross that I need to stop and reflect with my wife. Many times we forget that behind the politicians there are people And I, it doesn't make me blush to say it, I am a man deeply in love with my wife who suffers with her the impotence of the mud that they spread on her day in and day out. I need to stop and reflect. I urgently need to answer the question of whether it is worth it, despite the mud into which the right and the extreme right try to turn politics into. My doubt is whether I should continue at the head of the Government or resign from this high honour. Despite the caricature that the right and the extreme right in politics and the media have tried to make of me, I have never been attached to the position. Yes I have it to duty, to political commitment and public service. I do not go through positions, I assert the legitimacy of those high responsibilities to transform and advance the country that I love.
All of this leads me to tell you that I will continue working, but that I will cancel my public agenda for a few days so I can reflect and decide which path to take. Next Monday, April 29, I will appear before the media and announce my decision.
Thanks for your time. Sincerely,
Pedro Sanchez

 

Short-term Rentals Bring Problems for the Long-term Residents

 We’ve looked at the incipient turismofobia, as a mixture of the usual dislike and enviousness shown towards the apparently wealthy foreign tourists, who sometimes appear to under-appreciate this wonderful country (and are -whoops!- sometimes sick in the garden).

But it’s a great business – they bring money – 13% of the GDP comes from the trippers – and in return, they go home again with empty pockets, a sun-burn and a hangover. Not a bad exchange, all in all.

Not that the trickle-down-system necessarily works in this case for everyone. Some areas get a lot of visitors, and others, of course, don’t. Some folk make some good money from tourism, and most of the rest of society – needless to say – doesn’t. Indeed, all they seem to get is the inconvenience.

The Canary and Balearics have it the worst, because one can only pack so many peas into a jar.

For the islanders, thanks to the huge number of visitors, there’s high demand for a dwelling, a lack of affordable homes on offer, ever-more tourist apartments (they pay better), more and more short-lets, shortages, queues and of course legions of guiris understandably out for a good time… bringing scary news items like ‘Lanzarote on brink of collapse as tourists overwhelm small island and exploit resources’, ‘Ibiza locals living in cars as party island sees rents soar’ and ‘Protesters in the Canary Islands on hunger strike over mass tourism’. And there’s nowhere to go, beyond living in a cave, a hut or a van, or the incredible bother of flying over, daily, from the mainland. We learn that if you really want a cheap place to sleep, then there’s always ‘The most surreal (and precarious) rentals offered in the Canary Islands, from shacks to mattresses in parked cars’.

Not that the problems of high-rents, scarcity and being pushed to the back don’t occur elsewhere. An article in El País is titled ‘A journey through Spain with the victims of voracious tourism: “I can't take it anymore”. Residents from Cádiz, Palma, San Sebastian or Tenerife explain how their lives have worsened due to the rise of tourist apartments, the filth in the streets and the collapse of public and private services’. In Barcelona, someone is telling the local radio, ‘in our block there are 33 ATs (tourist-lets), and there’s noise, dirt and vomit’. The plan is to build more short-term apartments – because they produce better income for the owners (which, as often as not, turns out to be a vulture-fund). One detail in the story is of a resident who saw 28 people come out of a tourist-apartment one morning (after an understandably noisy night). And because they are short-term – maybe just a day or two – they don’t care much if they break or trash something…  

In my local tourist town, you can rent only until May, when the landlord will start looking for some Booking or AirBnb mini-breaks.

So where do you go until the low-season returns?

In Madrid, the national government talks of building more affordable apartment blocks, while threatening to clear out the worst barrios of an excess of ATs.

In metropolitan Valencia, there are twice as many tourist-lets as regular rentals.

In Seville, a local association complains about the bars and restaurants occupying the pavement with their ‘terrazas’, the endless special city-hall ‘events’ designed to bring in visitors (the current Feria de Abril), and of course, the tourist-apartments.

It can be annoying when hotels are allowed full swimming pools, but – due to water restrictions – residents living in community-blocks are in doubt. The good people of Málaga are not amused.

Maybe we could go swim at the hotels – it’s only fair…

Perhaps, say some visionaries, we could create a new tourist destination to ease the pressure on the current ones: a ‘New Ibiza’ in Cantabria.

Don’t laugh, they’ve already bought the land.  

The BBC says that ‘Activists have begun a hunger strike on the island of Tenerife, in protest at what they see as the destructive growth of tourism on the Canary Islands. Protesters are calling for a halt to the construction of a hotel and a beach resort in the south of the island’.

The answers to all this are inevitably to curtail the number of short-term apartment lets and to build more housing to become available for residents. Furthermore, to raise hotel prices (more wealthier tourists, less cheap holidays); apply ‘eco-taxes’ in high density resorts, show some respect towards local residents (priority parking stickers as an obvious example) and – above all – relief of the 90/180 day rule – being those long term tourists who generally own their own home (and in six months will evidently be spending a lot more than the brief visit by a holiday-maker).

Short-term apartments are fine in a rural tourism setting, but not so much in the city.

A graffiti on a wall in Madrid: ‘Fuck BNB, save the Barrio’.

Right now, the season is only just starting…

Sore Losers and Opportunities Lost

 Is it a case of sore losers, or of opportunities lost? Could it (possibly) be simple belief in their superior powers of management?

Would, in short, Spain be a better place with a conservative/far-right government than the current weak mix-and-match of Pedro Sánchez?

Judge with the examples of the regions of Castilla y León, Valencia, Extremadura and Aragón, where in some cases – inevitably – the tail wags the dog. The PP needs Vox just as the PSOE needs the lefties and the (sometimes rather trying) independence parties, who, in both the Basque Country and in Catalonia, will be faced with the inconvenient complication of being joined at the hip in the national government while at daggers drawn in the two upcoming elections.

This could end in tears as the PSOE will likely become obliged to choose one over the other, which is perhaps why Feijóo is calling for fresh national elections once again.

Even though there’s no doubt but that the Partido Popular (and Vox) will do terribly in both the coming Euskera and Catalunya elections.

Since the Spanish economy is doing well, the opposition must find alternate reasons to harass the government.

Corruption is a good place to start, but it is a two-edged sword. Right now (as two leading ex-ministers of José María Aznar - Rodrigo Rato and Eduardo Zaplana are coincidentally facing massive prison sentences), they are voting against the Government’s tactic of the amnesty for the Catalonian illegal referendum of 2017 from their majority presence in the Senate.

Bulos, or fake news are a popular alternative. Take poor Begoña Gómez, who gets a pasting from The Objective (a conservative news-site). A recent headline reads: ‘The Government hides the amount of a subsidy in the name of Begoña Gómez’. The photo shows Pedro Sánchez and his wife, Begoña Gómez. Good stuff. The site, however, later admits that the issue is with another woman entirely, who simply shares the same name. The same fake-news headline also made it to Telemadrid (which later, briefly, apologised) and even the floor of the Parliament.

Generally speaking, the conservatives have the support – more or less – of the private media, the judiciary, the church and the military, but not so much of the voters (evidently) and most foreign observers.

Charles Dickens could have been writing about Spain in 2024: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair”.

Ayuso's Star is Falling

 The future hope of the Partido Popular: once (and when, and if) the current leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo (who is as dull a politician as his name is unpronounceable) is defenestrated, is the attractive Madrid regional ruler Isabel Díaz Ayuso.

Ayuso is a popular and charismatic leader, the lucid spokesperson for the modern conservatives: the ‘pijos’ as they are sometimes known in Spain.

She has a modest tattoo on her forearm to honour Depeche Mode. So one can safely add ‘groovy’ to her manifest allure.

Ayuso’s popularity took a hit following the pandemic and her order to leave those who were in the region’s old people’s homes – or residencias – to stay put and not be transferred to hospitals if they caught the Covid. ‘They would have died anyway’ she said callously the other day. Some 7,921 old people died in their residencias (alone, without receiving medical attention), and maybe 4,000 of them could have been saved.

Last summer, Ayuso and her boyfriend moved into a luxury one million euro apartment in the tony area of Chamberí and – if we can believe elDiario.es – also into the upstairs roof apartment, giving her and her fellow 380sqm to wander around in. The apartment belongs to her boyfriend, who bought it loan-free, and the upstairs apartment belongs to a company controlled by the boyfriend’s lawyer. 

The boyfriend is Alberto González Amador, who earned two million euros in commissions during the pandemic and has since attracted the attention of Hacienda for neglecting to pay his taxes – claimed to stand at some 350,000€. In fact, González Amador had recognised the debt and had offered through his lawyer to pay the outstanding amount ‘plus any fines’ back in February, to avoid any larger punishment.

The original story of the boyfriend’s misdoings and his protection by his chorba (Madrid slang: girlfriend), who also happens to be the regional president, first appeared in elDiario.es a week or two ago. Since then, other news-sources have either fanned the flames, or done their best to put them out – depending on their political stance and the amount of money pledged to them in institutional advertising over the past few months (that’s 27 million euros for the Madrid regional for 2024). An example being Eduardo Inda, the director of OKDiario, who sings for his supper with his headline: ‘What they have done with Ayuso and her boyfriend shows that the Government is a mafia and Sánchez its boss’. With video (for those who can’t read). Hacienda was evidently working to pull down the wrong tax-avoider, indeed.

Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, Ayuso’s chief of staff, quickly responded to the scandal by opening a WhatsApp conversation with a journalist at elDiario.es and threatening to both sue and close them down:

“We are going to crush you. You're going to have to close. Idiots. Fuck you.”

“Is that a threat?” the journalist asked.

“It's a fact,” Rodríguez responded. (Google translation, not mine)

Elsewhere, we read that elDiario.es claims 1.5 million daily readers. They’ll be surprised.

How will this all affect Ayuso? Will she remain as the likely future candidate for the leadership of the PP? Not only Núñez Feijóo but the Vox leader Santiago Abascal must be watching all the goings-on – and trying to keep a straight face.  

11M

 On March 11th 2004, bombs were placed in four trains in the Atocha and two other stations in Madrid. 193 people died and around 2,000 were injured, making it the largest terrorist outrage in Europe in modern times (Wiki). 

This was just three days before the general elections and the ruling PP insisted that the outrage had been caused by ETA, despite evidence that the attack came from Arab terrorists opposed to the Spanish presence in the war in Iraq. 

This week, a full interview made at the time with President George W Bush has surfaced. The tape was doctored by the Spanish TV (in it, Bush had blamed the Arab terrorists). 

Despite the insistence by the government that ETA were the villains, the events brought the PSOE with Rodríguez Zapatero to power.

The Valencia Apartment-block Fire

 Last week’s main story was the tragic fire that burned two connected 14- and 10-storey blocks of flats in Valencia on Thursday February 22nd in just a couple of hours. 138 apartments were gutted. That it happened during the day meant that only ten people were killed. Another 500 or so (the estimate of the total inhabitants in the two blocks) are reported safe.

The fire started on the seventh floor following a spark from a short-circuit inside an electric window-awning.

The façade of the building – which began construction in 2006 – was covered by an innovative material called Alucobond, an aluminium composite that includes synthetic material.

The manufacturer’s website insists on its product: ‘High-quality, resilient and unique in appearance – Alucobond® stands for sustainable construction quality and the highest creative standards. The façade material is distinguished by its outstanding product attributes such as precise flatness, variety of surfaces and colours as well as excellent formability’.

The suggestion is that the inner core was highly flammable. The cladding ‘was made from polyurethane, Says The Local, which is a versatile plastic material, which exists in various forms. It is used in everything from shoe soles to sportswear fabrics and mattresses. It’s also often found in building construction, particularly for cladding and insulation. The material is highly flammable, and "when heated, it catches fire" said a fireman. The fact-checking site Maldita expressed caution over the claim, saying that the cladding was more likely to be a rock-wool composite. 

A friend who lives close-by sent me the photograph he took the next morning. 

We are reminded of the Grenfell tragedy in North Kensington, London, which burnt down in June 2017 with 70 deaths. The fire ‘was accelerated by a dangerously combustible aluminium composite cladding and external insulation, with an air gap between them enabling the stack effect’. 

Back in 2008, when the buildings were completed, similar to the entire real-estate sector in Spain, the developer behind the project and an even larger sister block nearby, a firm called Fbex, went into crisis. Two years later it filed for bankruptcy for 640 million euros and the entity passed into the control of its lending bank Banesto.

Many of the owners (or perhaps mortgage holders) were left with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing. The city hall of Valencia has given shelter to those affected. Mapfre insurance nevertheless has an obligation for 26.5 million euros on the buildings.

There are an untold number of high-rise buildings in Spain using a similar kind of cladding with polyurethane built before the regulations were changed in 2006. How would the owners (or, again, the mortgage-paying tenants) feel to discover that their building is potentially a fire-hazard? The tenants in the second Fbex project, in nearby Mislata (162 apartments) are understandably very concerned.

Far-Right Leaders at CPAC

 ‘The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is an annual political conference attended by conservative activists and elected officials from across the United States. The CPAC is hosted by the American Conservative Union…’ (Wiki). A toxic mixture of fundamentalist religion and authoritarianism.

Besides the usual suspects, some big names from abroad were at the CPAC last week (held outside Washington DC last Wednesday through Saturday), including Christine Anderson from the AfD; Hungary’s Miklos Szantho; the ‘anarcho-capitalist’ Javier Milei from Argentina; Japan’s Hiroaki “Jay” Aeba; Liz Truss from the UK and Spain’s Santiago Abascal, the leader of Vox (Media Matters here). 

A picture of Donald Trump and Abascal made the Spanish news (they look like they are sharing a lift) – and Europa Press quotes Trump as saying ‘‘From what I read, I think you will soon be number one’, at the same time ensuring that he was "delighted" to have met Abascal and congratulating him on the "great job" that Vox is doing’. The far-right Spanish press was, if possible, even more enthusiastic: El Debate (owned by 'the Catholic Association of Propagandists') quotes Abascal in his speech saying ‘Only from strong nations can we defend the culture and values that unite us: the homeland, freedom, reason, the faith of our parents, family, property, sovereignty, democracy and the limitation of power. And above all, life, from its beginning to its natural end’. Público (on the far-left) says: ‘Abascal deploys his ultra remarks in Washington and charges against socialism, environmentalism and the 2030 Agenda’.

(‘The Global Goals and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development seek to end poverty and hunger, realise the human rights of all, achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, and ensure the lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources’, we read here).

‘Brexit boss Nigel Farage — a veteran of more than a decade of CPACs — was received warmly by the CPAC audience and proved even more popular at evening cocktail parties. We “need strong leaders,” Farage railed during his speech, adding “we need Trump back in the White House”…’ says the The NY Post here.

All of these leaders would no doubt agree with the opening speaker and right-wing activist Jack Posobiec, who said: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavour to get rid of it and replace it with this right here.” He held up a cross necklace and continued: “After we burn that swamp to the ground, we will establish the new American republic on its ashes, and our first order of business will be righteous retribution for those who betrayed America”.

 ...

(While on the subject…) Trump on Putin – a short video at YouTube. ‘More and more Republican lawmakers are siding with Russia, seemingly at the behest of former President Trump, who has a long history of fawning over Vladimir Putin’ says MSNBC.

The Bar Indalo

In the old days - the sixties through the early eighties - the Hotel Indalo, located in the Mojácar Square, housed the Bar Indalo: the focal centre of the pueblo.

It was an ugly bar, dark and scruffy. They rarely managed any tapas and the decoration was bleak. There were a couple of tables and a black and white TV, switched on whenever there was a football game.

As somebody says, the toilets were pretty grim as well.

Outside, there were a few tin tables and chairs.

It was where we all met to catch up on the day's gossip.

I think it was a terrible shame when the hotel and its bar were demolished, along with the Aquelarre theatre, to make room for the 'multicentro' - three stories of grim souvenir shops.

In the picture, Antonio and Diego were for many years the two barmen.

Drought and the Patchwork Solutions

 It’s not looking very good in Catalonia with the water issue at the moment.

The BBC says ‘A state of emergency is declared as the region faces worst ever drought’. The fact is that the reservoirs are all but empty and there’s what the British would call a hosepipe-ban come into effect in 102 municipalities affecting six million residents including the people of the city of Barcelona.

While the Generalitat has concentrated on draconian reductions for agriculture, ranchers and industry (-80, -50 and -25% cuts), the subject of tourism has been left in the hands of the town halls. A headline on Sunday says that some of these local authorities are insisting on sea-water filled swimming-pools and no plugs to be provided in hotel baths.

We learn that tourists apparently like to use more water than residents.

Not enough rain (or snow-melt) is the culprit. But the effect is a drought – in the tail-end of winter.

One plan is to bring water up from Sagunto (Valencia) to the Catalonian capital by sea.

It’s been a warm and dry few months in Spain, with other areas equally worried about water shortage – particularly Andalucía.

All right, they aren’t cutting the water to the golf-courses on the Costa del Sol, but the larger plan there ‘will focus on using disused wells and boreholes, more desalination projects to make seawater usable and pushing local councils into fixing existing leaks in their water supply networks’.

In both regions – the fear is more that the tourist-industry will suffer than any apparent concern for the residents – as the availability of agricultural water is reduced and water-cuts are programmed for Seville, Córdoba and Málaga.

Andalucía is also looking at cistern-ships, maybe hauling water ‘from Portugal or even Asia’. Didn’t some place in Malaga bring a petite ice-burg down from Greenland last year?

A useful list of household water-economies includes showering rather than taking a bath – but the most effective break on domestic water-use would no doubt be the local water company putting up its prices.

Judging by the last few years of steadily increasing temperatures, the tourist bonanza may begin to falter, particularly in the south – although, here’s Sur in English: ‘Reassurance for Malaga and Costa del Sol tourism sectors following Andalucía's fresh drought decree. The regional government is to spend a further 217 million euros on measures to shore up water supply as the much-needed rain still fails to arrive’.

One answer is to build new desalination plants, but they are expensive and, as Greenpeace says, "This technology is essential to alleviate a period of extreme drought, like the one we are suffering now, but they are the last option". In Spain, there are currently an astonishing 770 of them – mostly used for domestic consumption. 

Thus, we prepare for the summer season - with another 85 million or so international tourists joining us for a drink, a swim and a shower.