The Battle for Spain

 I suppose it comes down to this – the country is doing well with Pedro Sánchez. Employment is the highest it has ever been, Spain’s GDP is growing and most observers from abroad put Spain squarely in the forefront. ‘Spain leads Europe with strong growth and connectivity’, ‘Spain leads Europe in outlook for travel experiences’, and tellingly, ‘Why is Spain's economy booming? Thanks to migration’ they are saying approvingly. 

But the Opposition wants in. Resign, they cry at every opportunity. The subtext being – let us have a go.

There’s more than one argument against letting the Partido Popular take the helm – the first being that they’d need to partner with Vox to obtain a majority, and no, we wouldn’t like that; and secondly – the last time they were in power, their government fell when they lost a motion of confidence for corruption. Quite a few of them still remain in national politics today.

It doesn’t sound good. The Courts and much of the Media might be with them, but we still didn’t know who the mysterious ‘M. Rajoy’ was: one of the many people who accepted sundry payments in ‘black’ from the party treasurer Luis Bárcenas, although the then Interior Minister (the one who came up with the anti-Podemos conspiracies and is also remembered for awarding Nuestra Señora María Santísima del Amor, a plaster virgin, with a gold medal) admitted in March this year that ‘M.Rajoy’ was (Oh the surprise!) Hizzhonor Mariano Rajoy no less.

But that’s all water under the bridge.

Apart from cutting taxes (and thus cutting services), what are the politics of the right? Could they make Spain more successful and wealthier than anything Pedro Sánchez can do? In Spain under the PSOE and its allies, we have seen rises in the minimum wage, rises in pensions, improved social justice and women’s rights, more jobs and better labour practices – and when the Opposition (along with Junts per Catalunya) hopefully drop their resistance – a reduction in the working week. 

The money that goes to (or is earned by) the wealthy might end up in a savings or investment account, or perhaps offshore. Or hey, maybe another supermarket (to improve their profits). It’s rare to see the wealthy commit the faux-pas of philanthropy, but of course it happens now and again, and most welcome too. 

Indeed, now that I think of it, one of our local familias should be building the town that made them a fortune a nice theatre.

On the other hand, the money that goes to the less better-off will immediately be returned to the economy, finding its eventual way to the owners of the leading supermarkets, banks, warehouses, importers, insurance companies and so on in what might almost be known as the ‘trickle-up effect’.

We wonder – why do the conservative parties do so well with those poorer voters who will clearly reap none of their benefits? I think a lot of it is down to marketing, lies and manipulation.

José María Aznar – often thought of as Spain’s worst modern president (remember the weapons of destruction in Irak) – says ‘He that can do something to pull down this government, let him do it (El que pueda hacer, que haga)’.

Many are giving it their best shot. 

‘Judge Marchena joins the antagonistic movement against the government. The list of judges openly critical of the government grows as the impartiality of the courts is called into question’ says one editorial.

‘Is Sánchez's Spain a mess? This is how the right constructs the false narrative that only they know how to govern’, we read in another pro-Government paper.

A third one says, ‘The government sees a "clear campaign of siege" against Sánchez from a conservative opposition that believes power belongs to it by right’. Or maybe, divine right.

Then there’s the complicit media – which provides the news (from the top) that one expects and hopes to read. Journalist Ester Palomera writes ‘Manipulators and liars have always existed, but what is worrying today about the existence of unrestrained professional agitators and mis-informers is that they have the support of the PP’.

Furthermore, there is the far-right Manos Limpias with its fake news and press cuttings which has brought about the fruitless year-long siege by Judge Peinado against the wife of Pedro Sánchez, with the apparent aim of attempting to weaken the President’s popularity.

A useful way to check unlikely stories is to go to the fact-checkers Maldita or Newtral (they both have a reputation to maintain, so they don’t publish whoppers).

Far-right news sources include La Razón, OKDiario, El Debate, and many others. The ‘progressive’ media (El País, El Huff Post, elDiario.es and so on) also has numerous titles. On the TV, the pro-Government news is on RTVE and, to a lesser degree, LaSexta, while all the others are conservative (Cuatro, Telecinco, TeleMadrid and Canal Sur).  Beyond these are even wilder channels like EDATV and the Church’s Canal Trece (lots of cowboy films, prayers and far-right news). Plus any number of YouTube specials...

Congress is fighting back at some of the worst of the extreme youtubers by ‘targeting far-right media agitators accredited to Parliament. The PSOE and its investiture partners propose avoiding violence and disrespect from pseudo-media outlets in the chamber. The Partido Popular has not revealed how it intends to vote, and Vox flatly rejects the reform of the rules’. We read that ‘Incidents of hate, insults, and disrespect have become a decorative element within the Congress of Deputies’. Perhaps more encouraging is a notice that ‘The Supreme Court denounces the attempt to "criminalize the political system" with "unusual and absurd" lawsuits’.

There’s an old song from The Doors with the line ‘they’ve got the guns, but we’ve got the numbers’.

It’s getting tight though...

The Partido Popular: When the Plan Backfires

 The right, and especially the far right, are trying to instil in public opinion the idea that Spain is an unmitigated disaster. On Saturday, they demonstrated in Madrid's Plaza Colón, where else? The coincidence of two events in less than seven days, such as the blackout and massive train delays, initially supports this argument. Also, the political instability caused by the government's lack of a majority in Congress. The underlying message is that the country is on the brink of collapse, and to achieve this, they are twisting reality into a caricature.

The opposition will always say that things are bad and that they will only improve with them in power. So far, so good. It happens in every country. What is happening in Spain is that the Partido Popular is immersed in a catastrophic drift that gained strength under Pablo Casado and that Alberto Núñez Feijóo has only intensified. Obviously, they have to take advantage of the April 28 blackout, especially if its reasons are still unknown. And yes, there's no way to present it as an innocuous or irrelevant event.

Their criticism stems not from having a different energy model, but from this desire to claim that Spain is going down the drain. It doesn't matter that Spain has been growing at a much faster rate than the rest of the European Union for three years. It doesn't matter that Spain was the largest economy with the fastest growth in the world in 2024, according to the analysis conducted by the OECD, the IMF, and the European Commission. It doesn't matter that a key factor was the low price of energy in relative terms thanks to the Iberian exception that the government obtained after pressuring the EU and which the PP was against (of course!).

All of this data is contradicted by Feijóo's speech, when a few months ago he was able to claim that "GDP per capita hasn't risen; we've been at the bottom of Europe since 2018." This is false. Logically, GDP per capita takes population into account. Even in this regard, the PP peddles facts that only an economic illiterate can defend.

They say this to challenge "the lie of growth." What conservative media outlets like the Financial Times and The Economist are saying must be a lie. They're surely sold out to Sanchezism. For those who think that the GDP doesn't reflect a country's economic status, just note that this isn't true in the case of employment and public debt. And now tell me those two factors are irrelevant.

On the political level, the baseless sensationalism is no less important. Spain is no longer a democracy. The Constitution has been suspended. Freedom of expression is suffering like never before. The threat of autocracy is greater than ever. "They've sneaked a dictatorship in through the back door and we're at the beginning of it," said Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The PP has been taking these complaints to Brussels for years, secretly hoping that the European Commission will treat Spain like Hungary. Without any success.

The paradox of this failed strategy is that it will likely benefit Vox more than the PP. Vox's is a protest vote, a no to everything, fuelled by the portrayal of Spain as a failed state that must be saved at all costs. Periodically, right-wing media outlets feature articles quoting PP leaders convinced that they have finally succeeded in gaining votes from the far right, most recently through Vox's support for Donald Trump. They then describe an apocalyptic outlook in Spain, which contributes to Vox voters believing that a radical option is needed to confront Sánchez, one that doesn't involve the soft Feijóo.

And we know that the PP can’t rule Spain without Vox.

Many surveys and studies reveal a growing loss of support for democracy among sectors of the population. Some of these studies reveal, above all, the existence of biased questions that influence responses. Given a CIS poll that says many young people would be willing to accept an authoritarian regime if it guaranteed them a better standard of living, one must ask how many dictatorships can do something like this. If this were true, the number of democracies would be fewer.

There are indeed issues, such as housing, where it's clear that Spain has regressed in the last two decades. It's objectively more difficult to buy or rent a home now than it was back then, and this has a harsh impact on younger people. The consolidation of certain progressive values, or those achieved thanks to progressive governments, such as the right to abortion, has led to a spread of rebellious attitudes among young people on the right, who associate the current government with a series of values ​​that only have negative consequences.

Throughout Europe, and also in the US, resentment has become a very profitable political tool. The far right builds its narrative of tension and polarization on the basis of this social resentment, generating a context in which, indeed, catastrophism has a following.  Inequality, the lack of good jobs, and dissatisfaction with unfulfilled promises open the door to fear and resentment. Job insecurity may not be as severe now as it was in the 1990s, but that means nothing to people if it doesn't help them buy a home.

For democratic institutions to continue to enjoy public support, they must be able to solve people's problems. This is the essential element of the debate, which is why we must distrust those who demand more authoritarianism, as if all citizens were minors. We must also refute the prophets of doom who claim that Spain is falling apart and can only be saved with a firm hand. They are the ones who stir up social resentment and seek to create enemies among the most vulnerable groups, starting with immigrants.

This country is much better than its false defenders claim.

(Based on an editorial from Iñigo Sáenz de Ugarte, assistant editor of elDiario.es)

Fallout From the Blackout

Much has been written and said about the power cut last week which affected almost all of Spain and lasted anything up to a full day (and night). The government says it has called for an investigation, and there was even talk – now rather less, but one must keep up with the times – of some cyber sabotage.

It’s called ‘El Apagón’ - the Shut Down, and it evidently inconvenienced a nation, from stalled lifts to inoperative traffic-lights, with no cell-phones and no news (unless one has a radio with a battery). The panic however was generally light and there were no reports of looting. We read that some virtuous citizens were helping the police directing the traffic, while others even accepted drinking beers at room temperature!

Commercial losses due to the incident were around 1,600 million euros according to figures from the CEOE as quoted by the BBC.

Of course, the Opposition in its usual helpful way is trying to blame the Government for what must obviously and inevitably be a technical issue from within the electric companies themselves.

While the EWN stridently complained about the black-out (they had a paper to print) and furiously blamed the politicians in their topical edition (no doubt the Government trembled), I was lucky enough to be found that day cycling in Germany on an e-bike equipped, I have to say, with a full charge.

The Weenie, by the way, following the lead from La Razón and its ‘Caos Total’ front-page.

Other agencies also put the blame firmly on the Government – although it’s clear enough that the singularity was a technical one, emerging in some as yet unexplained manner from the electric companies, whether through some failure or other between the renewables and the standard polluters (although there was no particular rise or fall either in the sun or the wind on that day).

But let’s blame Sánchez anyway. The PP, which is bearing up well under the Mazón Crisis (where, after six months, we still don’t know what he was up to – besides not answering his phone – in the Ventorro restaurant on the day of the Valencia flood), lasted almost three hours following the restoration of power nationwide before declaring that there was an information black-out by the Government – we demand answers (and so on).

The President stated that ‘Citizens must know that the government will get to the bottom of this. Measures will be taken, and all private operators will be held accountable. To this end, the Spanish government has concluded a commission of inquiry led by the Ministry for Ecological Transition’.

So, who are the power companies – and who owns them?

Much of the energy industry has been privatised over the years, with the Red Eléctrica Española – which operates the national grid – currently having only 20% public participation (although the president of the REE, Beatriz Corredor, is a government appointee). The largest private investor in the Redeia (a holding which includes the REE) is the Galician billionaire Amancio Ortega.  Endesa, Naturgy and Iberdrola are private entities (Endesa is 70% held by the Italian Enel). We read of a ‘lack of investment and prevention in the energy system’, where profit-driven companies look to their shareholders. An irate article at Canarias-Semanal asks ‘What silent mechanisms protect the dominance of the power companies? For decades, electricity was a public service. Today, it is a commodity controlled by foreign funds, recycled former politicians, and corporate giants’. Today’s ‘eléctricas’ are not just companies that sell electricity, but are also large financial groups with tentacles in politics, the media and the economic structures of the State – and the term ‘revolving doors’, where politicians retire from active service and end up on the boards of power companies – or elsewhere – is a sure-fire protection for them. Furthermore, with their generous publicity campaigns, who will criticise them in the media?’

We must still wait for the answer to the power-cut, and the Government is anxious to know both the details and the solution as soon as possible. Are the renewables insecure and should we rely more on nuclear power? The Guardian notes that ‘Blackouts can happen regardless of what type of energy powers the grid’.

Thus, it wasn’t a cyber-attack by some aggressive foreign agency – but it could be the next time. Measures must be taken and maybe a few heads must roll. It’s the nature of things.

Spain's Capital City

Madrid is an interesting city.

How it became the capital of Spain (remember that word, ‘capital’) is an interesting story as well.

There wasn’t much going on in Madrid back in the XVI Century. It counted with a small population, and it wasn’t on the sea or even on a decent river (the Río Manzanares is almost always nothing more than a trickle, although in the last week it’s certainly true to say that it has reached its highest level in donkey’s years). Madrid’s main industries were of court, religious or political interest rather than making anything useful. Other nations rather more sensibly had their capital cities where they could enjoy good communications and better trade.

One of the city’s attractions for the Royal Family was the gigantic private hunting park, 16,000 hectares in size – which took up a full quarter of Madrid and which was and is to this day closed to the commoners: the Monte de El Pardo. There’s a huge palace there, General Franco was one of its tenants.

King Juan Carlos even built a house in the park for his lover Corinna Larsen, without anyone – including his Queen – being any the wiser.

The fence around the Monte de El Pardo is 66 kilometres long.

In 1561, when Madrid with its modest population of 20,000 became Spain's capital city, there was no port, no industry, no commerce, no cathedral, no university, and no navigable river. But, on the bright side, there were plenty of fallow deer and stags for the king's enjoyment.

The previous Spanish capital from 1519 to 1561 had been Toledo (it was also the country’s largest city), although it's true to say that the seat of power has tended to jump about a bit along the Spanish timeline (including Seville - twice - in 1729 to 1733 and then again between 1808 and 1810), plus Cádiz, Córdoba and don’t forget Cangis de Onis in Asturias, where la Reconquista began, along with Valencia, Barcelona, Gerona, Figueras and Burgos – these last five during the Spanish Civil War), but from the point of view of the Monarchs, Madrid was far better suited (and they didn’t have to share the limelight with the tiresome Toledo bishops).

One of the cleverest of the grandees, back in the first half of the XVII Century, was Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, the first Duque de Lerma. He is described as ‘the most powerful man during the reign of Philip III. He became immensely wealthy through his skill in corruption, influence peddling, and the sale of public offices’. He persuaded the king to move his court to Zaragoza in 1601 (having previously bought up most of the better real estate there) and then talked the king into returning his court back to Madrid in 1606, having been busy in the property market in that city too.

Some traditions in Spain are just too good to die.

The Duque ended up under a cloud, as sometimes happens when speculators are found out (viz, current events), but he built a large palace for himself in Lerma, a building which is now a Parador Hotel, to keep himself busy.

His elegant solution to his financial chicanery was to ask the Pope to make him a cardinal (senior churchmen had full immunity in those times, similar to that enjoyed by today’s politicians) giving rise to a popular saying:

‘To avoid the rope,

Spain’s greatest thief,

Pays off the Pope’.

“Para no morir ahorcado / el mayor ladrón de España / se viste de colorado”.

Again, it’s maybe safe to say, some things never change.