The State of the Nation: Tax the Banks and Give Free Train-passes.

The banks have already collected their latest round of commissions, the monthly, quarterly and half-year wallops they like to remove from our accounts with a smile. Maintenance fees, they say airily: the cost of looking after our money for us.

However, as one of the pronouncements from the State of the Nation debate last week, they will now be paying some tax on their profits over the next 24 months and will unfortunately not be able to pass this along to their clients. Perhaps, like my bank, they’ll put up a sign which says ‘Less is More’, close their teller-windows for good and indeed many more of their branches and, why not, change their name in passing to the CajaOrwell.

They will probably quietly ease some more of their hard-won funds to the conservative opposition as well. Maybe buy another newspaper.

The Government will also be taxing the power companies’ profits, much to their chagrin.

The bonanza of gifts from last week’s debate did much to cheer up the left-wing of the government, as it did to appease citizens, worried about the high increase in the cost of living (did you know that making your own gazpacho has gone up, screams the ABC). Better still, from September, we will be able to travel around on the trains for free. Well, the local and regional ones anyway. The Guardian says ‘The price cuts are being implemented to cushion the impact of inflation and rapidly rising energy prices’. The money the banks scooped out of our checking account.

Since most of the focus in the last two decades has been on high-speed trains that whoosh from city to city (as a huge expense of capital), the local network, where it existed, has been rather left to founder. Here in Almería, where we haven’t ever had any trains except the one that chugs gloomily north to Linares in Jaén once a day, and where the old city train-station has been abandoned (lovingly), we have been promised an AVE by 2026 (it was first promised for 2009) or maybe a couple of years later, but of course, no word on a local train service. We will be able – one day – to go to Madrid, Paris and Moscow (no doubt changing trains in Murcia), but not to Alhama de Almería.

It’s a nice idea though – it worked in Germany – to use less petrol and go with public transport (they currently charge €9 a month for any and all train journeys).

Perhaps the bus companies won’t be amused – they talk here of ‘discrimination’, but Renfe (railways) is a public company and Alsa (Spain’s leading coach operator) isn’t – no, it belongs to National Express (wiki).

 

Two Stories: One Narrative

Most of the media in Spain - understandably enough - is owned by large corporations who want to make money (the general rule being, that newspapers, radio and even TV tend to lose money). They also want to bring the public, their audience, around to a particular view. After all, what one loses on the swings, one can make back on the roundabouts. The politicians will be interested in helping them as for the quid pro quo. You bring us voters, mass-approval and the odd swinging door promotion and we'll sort out that vexing company tax issue that the lefties have been on about.

An article at The Corner disagrees with the accusation of media manipulation in Spain. ‘Discrediting is easy, it sounds good because it serves to justify oneself and blame others for one’s own mistakes. It is the easy road to social regression, to that malaise that demobilises and encourages irresponsibility’ it says.

So, in short, we should believe everything we read. 

Several TV chat shows have been found to be manipulating the truth about Irene Montero recently, nothing new there. The Minister of Equality Montero (Podemos) was asked about the events in Melilla the other day when at least 23 immigrants died while trying to cross the border from Morocco. Montero went on record saying it was a tragedy and insisted on an independent inquiry. 

Her words were carefully edited and the result was something truly different. Thus the chat shows of El Programa de Ana Rosa (Telecinco) – a sort of ‘Fox and Friends’, Espejo Público (Antena 3) and Más de Uno (Onda Cero Radio) were egregiously brutal against the minister. The video in question was tricked up – it says here – by a right-wing journalist and lawyer called Javier Gimeno Priede. 

A few days after the original broadcast, Ana Terradillos apologised on El Programa de Ana Rosa saying that they had failed to show the entire Montero interview. 

Known in the World of the Media as 'the old apology at the bottom of page nine'.

There are several commercial TV channels in Spain, plus the ones operated by the regional governments, plus, of course, the national RTVE. The regional ones, in both the news and the opinion 'tertulia' talking-head programs, are slanted according to the colour of the politicians in charge, as we know and give them the appropriate credit (The Andalusian Canal Sur, for example, gives us the news slanted to favour the Partido Popular, with a few nods towards Vox). The RTVE is more or less impartial, like the BBC, with representation from both the Government and the Opposition on the board of directors. 

Or, to put it another way - both sides complain about their lack of impartiality...

Which brings us to the commercial channels with their long pauses for adverts. They are of course supporters of the conservatives and are owned by large corporations (Silvio Berlusconi owns both El Cuatro and Telecinco) while Atresmedia (Antena3 and LaSexta) belongs to a combination of Grupo Planeta (they also own La Razón) and Bertelsmann. Wiki says that 'The merger of Antena3 with LaSexta (by means of the absorption of the latter) was formalised in October 2012. After the merger, LaSexta somewhat retained a perception of a left-leaning profile, starkly contrasting to those of the rest of Planeta media properties'.

More important than the example of the hostile editing of Irene Montero mentioned above is the cynical manipulation carried out by the previous government regarding Irene's husband Pablo Iglesias (he of the ponytail, since removed) and the party he started in 2014: Podemos, and - according to some newly unearthed secret recordings involving (apart from the usual suspects) - the director of LaSexta, Antonio García Ferreras, who is better known to viewers as a news-caster and who is generally considered to lean slightly to the left. 

Ferreras, Pablo Iglesias and Eduardo Inda

The recordings are between the master manipulator the ex-commissar José Manuel Villarejo in March 2017 (shortly before his arrest) and Ferreras, who essentially admits on tape that he knew at the time that the 'proofs' against Podemos were bogus, but he had run them on his show anyway. 

The tapes, discovered by Patricia López at Crónica Libre, show that Planeta - owner of LaSexta among other outlets - were happy to run the invented news of Eduardo Inda from OKDiario, knowing it to be false. The bogus story (shortly before the June 2016 general elections) was how the Venezuelan government had donated $272,000 to an offshore account run by Pablo Iglesias. It is, we read, '...the final confirmation that the largest Spanish communication group has conspired for years with members of the police, judges and sundry self-styled journalists to try to sink the credibility and political career of Pablo Iglesias'. It was certainly effective, as the difference between the December 2015 and June 2016 Spanish general elections for Podemos was a fall of 20 seats, from 65 to 45).

Between the media, the corporations and the judiciary (Podemos has been the accused party in any number of court-cases which were later archived), it's no surprise to read that the presidents of Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and Chile have all spoken of the 'mediatic sewers' in Spain. 

Also critical of the media-manipulation in Spain, we find France's Jean-Luc Mélenchon who writes: "Scandal in Spain: the journalist of an important television program invented defamatory revelations about Podemos and Pablo Iglesias in connection with the (Rajoy Government) Ministry of the Interior". 

The leading fake-news provider, OKDiario (its director is the talking-head Eduardo Inda), and (oddly) a regular on Ferreras' chat-show Al Rojo Vivo, naturally denies the whole story - based on the newspaper's fabrication of illegal financing for Podemos via Venezuela, known, at least in right-wing circles - as PISA or 'Pablo Iglesias sociedad anónima', claiming that it is nothing more than an invention from the left-wing media to attempt to justify Podemos' fall in popularity. It was certainly enough to lose Podemos a large number of votes in 2016.

Ferreras on his Monday broadcast at Al Rojo Vivo denied the charges, 'we have never published news knowing it to be false', he says.

...

"I guarantee you, there is a war out there. There is a war between facts and slogans, there is a war between information and propaganda, there is a war between truth and lies". Thus, Javier Ruiz's farewell in June 2018 on the final broadcast of the program Las Mañanas de Cuatro.

 

Adiós Facebook. Hello Vida.

 I've given up with Facebook.

This time, they jailed me for another month after putting a frivolous comment on a Spectrum post about the new proposal to double-pack passengers on a flight.

I wrote: 'Why not knock them unconscious and stack them in the hold'.  Pathetic perhaps, but hardly revolutionary.

The Thought Police were quick on the uptake and gave me another month to cool my heels (I had just got out that day from an earlier and equally stupid sentence). 

Facebook - where one isn't even allowed the luxury of a kangaroo court. Where the power to close one down is evidently in the hands of faceless gnomes.

It raises the question - are they really watching us, or is there a filter that catches the key words like 'unconscious', or do people with a loose understanding of the word 'fair' routinely report their rivals (apparently one can)? 

Facebook takes my money for promoting a site of mine called 'Business over Tapas', that I can't even visit.

Indeed, I'm currently barred from putting as much as a 'like' on a post, and friends don't know I've been removed from all activity because I can't tell them. For that matter, I am not permitted to send even a 'like', much less a heart emoji, to a birthday friend.

They've even gone to the length of freezing the feed - with nothing new for me to see since I was thrown into the slammer

So, to Hell with Facebook. 

It's a pity because, having been in desktop-publishing most of my life, I enjoyed seeing and posting on Facebook. I no doubt spent far too much time looking at it on the cell-phone (the average time spent on social media by those who use it, says Statista, is over two hours a day).

Me and Donald Trump both!

Did you see that: it '...usually takes a few weeks.'? 

Still, with all this free time I now have, I can do all sorts of other things to fill my day.
Dig a hole, maybe.

Juan Carlos Drops By

 

It’s a subject that one would prefer to shy away from, but the Old King, Juan Carlos I of España, was briefly in his erstwhile kingdom over the past weekend. He had flown in to Vigo airport in a horribly expensive chartered jet. It was his first visit to Spain in 21 months.

He was generally given a rapturous welcome (the local daily gave him the first nine pages), and certainly so by the good folk of Sanxenxo (Pontevedra) where he went to the Club Náutico to join the regatta for the weekend. One fondly imagines that he ate mountains of caviar and drank the best champagne, but no one seems to think that such behaviour, far removed from the experience of most of his ex-subjects, was in any way inappropriate for the occasion.

And, after all, he had been in exile in Abu Dhabi for a couple of years, no doubt quietly drinking tea, weeding his garden and reading favoured bits from The Old Testament.

The journalists finally caught up with the Emeritus, and as he was setting off to Madrid on Sunday one of them thrust a microphone under the Royal nose and asked Juan Carlos what explanations he would be giving to his son. ‘About what?’ said the ex-king, as he wound up the window with a laugh.

On Monday, attention moved to the Royal Palace for what must have been a slightly frosty interview with his son – the first time they had been together in two years – followed by a luncheon (his wife Queen Sofía, just back from Miami, has tested positive for Covid and regretfully missed the meal, while Queen Letitia also decided against joining the family reunion) and then a trip to the airport with one small overnight bag (just kidding).

No press release has been issued about what went on behind the closed palace doors.

How the brief visit played with the population is down to which news-source one prefers – with everything from a clutch of flag-waving Spaniards outside the Royal Palace shouting ‘¡Viva el rey!’ on the one hand; to Alberto Garzón, the truculent leader of the Izquierda Unida, telling jounalists that ‘everyone in Spain knows he’s a crook’.

The New York Times is quoted in the Spanish media as making the point that Juan Carlos’ actions are certainly complicating the reign of Felipe VI.

Then there’s the suggestion that the Emeritus will soon be returning to Spain for another refreshing dalliance.

But, let us leave the last word with El Gran Wyoming, who has written a song to celebrate the fleeting Royal Visit.

The Andalusian Elections: What to Expect

 
The Andalusian elections are coming around, a little earlier than anticipated, to cash in on the rise in support for the Partido Popular after its latest defenestration – as the penny finally dropped that the party leader Pablo Casado was a liability while the new leader, the unpronounceable Alberto Núñez Feijóo, was a far surer bet.

The Junta de Andalucia, the regional government based firmly in Seville, is led by the capable Juanma Moreno, who currently rules the region with the support of Ciudadanos (and the blessing of Vox). He is looked on as a moderate conservative. Before Juanma won the election in December 2018, the region had been run by the PSOE-A for forty years, and corruption, nepotism, and the other sins of government were much in evidence, indeed, two of the three socialist presidents – Manuel Chaves and José Antonio Griñán – are now awaiting confirmation of their sentences for a slew of misdeeds, led by the ERE Inquiry.

Facing Juanma Moreno PP – the certain winner short of a surprise – we find the new and improved PSOE-A led by the ex-mayor of Seville, Juan Espadas, who seems a decent sort (although, as the regional minister for housing from 2010 to 2013, he may be remembered without pleasure by those who suffered with ‘illegal properties’). Whether he is capable of bringing back home the vote is probably unlikely. The reason is that many ordinary socialists have switched either into the Podemos fraternity, or, in Andalucía, into the magic of the Vox party, which provides a type of politics which always looks good to those at the bottom: racism, flag-waving and cant.

Thus today, Vox can count on 20% of the vote. Their candidate is Mercedes Olona who is – as Wiki says – ‘known for her virulent criticism of the government of Pedro Sánchez, accusing it of "genocide" for its management of the Covid-19 pandemic or of wanting to impose the Venezuelan "chavist model" in Spain. She favours the establishment of a government of "national salvation" involving the army. She is opposed to laws on LGBT or gender violence’. A handful indeed.

The Ciudadanos party are without doubt washed up, and their 21 seats will likely be reduced to one or maybe two. Juan Marín, the capable regional minister for tourism, is their candidate.

The other contender is inelegantly named Por Andalucía: the mishmash of Izquierda Unida, Más País, Podemos and other minnows. While the lefties eventually agreed on a coordinated candidature, to be headed up by the IU politician Inmaculada Nieto, the papers from Podemos were delivered ‘a few minutes late’ (sic) to the electoral commission and there is now doubt as to whether the Podemos contingent can legally stand in the coalition or must go it alone.

The outcome for these elections on June 19th (where the 710,000 or so foreign residents of course may not vote) will likely leave the PP in the lead with somewhere around 50 seats and the PSOE-A with 32. Vox would be third with 17 and the Por Andalucía lefties with 10.

With a count of 55 needed to reach a majority, the PP will likely have to treat with Vox this time around. What will be Vox’ price?

Who Will Watch the Watchers?

 ‘The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, announced this Monday from the Moncloa, (despite it being a public holiday in Madrid), that the mobile phones of the President of the Government Pedro Sánchez and of the Minister of Defence Margarita Robles have been infected by the Pegasus program…’ La Vanguardia has the story. El Huff Post is quite excitable: ‘it is the worst case of spying during Spain’s democracy’.

The phone-spying in these cases occurred last summer. This type of phone-intrusion is not just ‘listening in’, but rather, the entire unit becomes open to inspection: photos, Whatsapp, Gmail, SMS and so on…

Did it happen, and if so, have we been told by the CNI intelligence agency just now of something occurring last year to deflect attention (or even blame) from the Catalonian spy-issue? Conspiracy theories abound for the time being, as the Audiencia Nacional (wiki) investigates.

It also appears that anything up to 1,400 phones may have been compromised in Spain.

Indeed, the system could likely be operating all over Europe, as an inquiry begins in the European Parliament into the use of this illegal software.

What was happening last year as the Spanish President’s phone was being examined? During the May and June 2021 break-ins, the Moroccan issue over Ceuta and Melilla was much in the public eye – and Morocco, Bless it, is very friendly with Israel.

So, who else might be in line for spying on the President? The secret service, allied in some way with those of a conservative inclination? The Americans, allied through Israel with the Moroccans? The Russians (flavour of the month)? The fellow upstairs who is always on his computer?

Maybe it’s all just a trick to deflect the inquiry away from the Catalonian phone-taps?

Which brings us to Catalan News here: ‘The University of Toronto-based tech crime research group Citizen Lab is investigating whether another 150 people could have also been targeted with Pegasus spyware in the wake of the Catalangate revelations, the online newspaper El Confidencial reported on Saturday. Pegasus spyware allows people to control phones remotely by gaining access to a device's memory and activating cameras and microphones…’

As Margarita Robles the Minister of Defence (the minister in charge of the secret service, the CNI) was herself allegedly spied upon, one again questions who is responsible, and who is in charge. The CNI has the Pegasus spy-ware – they have admitted as much – and, well, it would seem likely that they would use it, to Protect the State, even from itself.