D'oh!

Texan attempts to cash cheque for $360 billion.

Boris Johnson wins London Mayoral election.

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May 3, 2008 | Filed Under General, Politics, UK | 1 Comment 

Mugabe loses arms

Great news: that Chinese ship packed with arms and ammunition has been ordered to return home, after no port could be found to unload its cargo, apparently bound for Zimbabwe.

What started out as action by human rights groups and trade unions in Durban expanded into a tacit agreement between African states not to allow the cargo ship to unload. This is proof, for those who would normally deny it as well as we who already knew it, that trade unions and peaceful protest can achieve great things. While I don't doubt that Mugabe has ready access to plenty of guns, mortars and broken bottles, this union action has undoubtedly denied him weapons he could have used against his politcal opponents.

Oh yeah, and Barça - while not the winning side - played pretty well yesterday. They're by no means through but Manchester Utd have to beat them now to proceed to the final.

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April 24, 2008 | Filed Under Politics | 2 Comments 

Esperanza plays poker, Sirera is a cherry

I saw Esperanza Aguirre, PP leadership hopeful and all round liar, referring to her love for card games the other day. She plays poker, apparently. Despite the fact that my Dad was in the Navy, I've never been someone who could pick up card games. There's a wonderful scene in The League Of Gentlemen where a doctor is forced to join a card game called 'Go Johnny Go Go Go Go', the rules of which are insanely complex. The sketch must have been written by a fellow non-card-player, as it perfectly captures the feeling of trying to play one of those infernal games, always knowing that the next card you put down will be met with sideways glances and the introduction of yet another arcane 'rule' which only serves to prolong the agony of putting down another card.

There's an ancient rehearsal of the sketch at YouTube:

Go Johnny Go Go Go Go, YouTube (but the sound is rubbish, so…)

Meanwhile, Daniel Sirera, the head of the PP in Catalonia was on the morning news show today on TV3. Golly, he's uncharismatic. The interview was shit, as they usually are. The only amusing bit was when Sirera refused to rule out that he'd back Aguirre in her bid for the PP leadership. He hummed and hawed a bit, which was enough to make me think that his vote hasn't yet been bought.

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April 22, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia, PP, Politics, Spain | 1 Comment 

News: Women, unions and blogging

The reason for a lack of updates here is simple: too much work. However, the world has carried on spinning.

The Spanish political arena is currently fairly dull. Zapatero announced a female majority cabinet, which is obviously an interesting statement. It doesn't say much about what his second government will achieve. My guess is: not a hell of a lot. Libertad Digital reckons that ETA are pushing for talks with the government by letting off bombs. Talks should happen, but probably won't, given that the PP is committed to breaking the historic pact of support for the government's terrorism policy. The struggle for power in the PP is the only story really worth following.

Good news: unionised dock workers in Durban refused to unload millions of dollars worth of Chinese weapons bound for Zimbabwe. Action by local human rights groups and trade unions prevented the delivery of arms and ammunition for Mugabe's regime from a Chinese ship. Apparently, the ship is now enroute for Mozambique. I can only hope that union workers there will also fight the 'free market' which allows China to arm Mugabe's psychotic and murderous regime. I mean, could the timing be any more obvious? This is the moral equivalent of Mussolini's assistance to Franco's rebellion.

We met up with Graeme of South of Watford fame (Madrid's best English-language blog) last night. I got a bit drunk (sorry about that) but we had a great evening, ending up in Plaça Reial, where I insulted an arsehole of a waiter.

The next few weekends will be pretty busy and work is going to be intense over the coming weeks. But I'll try to blog a bit more because I enjoy this.

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April 20, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia, Internet computer, PP, Politics, Spain | 4 Comments 

"One World, One Dream" - against totalitarianism

There's something in me that switches off when pro-Tibet protesters hang a banner off San Francisco's Golden Gate bridge, declaring "One World, One Dream: Free Tibet". One world, one dream, eh? I mean what does that even mean? That the whole world wants Tibet to be free? That the 'one world' is united in that 'one dream'?

Photo from sfthqphotos, at Flickr

Tibet and its treatment at the hands of Chinese authoritarianism is an important issue. But 'One World, One Dream'? If the protesters had wanted to make a decent point, they'd have opposed the Oympic Games all together. 'One World, One Dream: Bread' would have moved me a lot more.

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April 11, 2008 | Filed Under Language, Politics, Rants | 2 Comments 

Carod will not run for re-election as ERC leader

Josep Lluis Carod Rovira, president of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya and vice-President of the Generalitat has finally announced that we won't seek re-election as the party's leader. This is the result of about two years' wrangling within the party over which direction it should adopt to gain more power in Catalonia.

Carod has been a divisive figure in Spanish and Catalan politics (but no more than pretty much any other political leader), and while he led ERC to large gains in 2004, many ERC supporters failed to turn out for the party after it accepted José Montilla as President of the Generalitat. Still, his strategy, as I understand it, has worked pretty well considering that the PSC has definitely radicalised somewhat in a failed effort to snatch Catalanist voters from ERC. Indeed, the drop in support for Esquerra in the recent elections was the result of a terrible election campaign (apparently run by Puigcercós), and large-scale abstention, rather than people actually going and voting for different parties.

This means that Joan Puigcercós will very likely be the next president of the party, unless one of the alternative currents like Esquerra Independentista manage to pull off a coup and nick the top job. Unlikely.

UPDATE: Carod Rovira has now made it clear that he things that Puigcercós should do the honourable thing and follow his example by leaving the way clear for a new leadership. Puigcercós will almost certainly ignore this friendly advice. Carod has also stated that he'll support the candidature of a new leader, opening up the chance of a genuine contest for the leadership.

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March 25, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia, Politics | 2 Comments 

PP: Acebes & Zaplana out, Camps & Aguirre in

The PP has had a change of leadership. As predicted, this has involved the sidelining of Angel Acebes and Eduardo Zaplana. The new members of what Rajoy is calling his 'own team' are to be la niña de Rajoy, Francisco Camps (president of the Comunitat Valenciana) and Esperanza Aguirre (president of the Comunidad de Madrid). Both Camps and Aguirre lead PP strongholds which gained seats in the recent election,

This isn't a shift towards the centre, mind. Aguirre and Camps are both plenty right-wing when they want to be. Check out Graeme's obssesive enlightening series of posts about Aguirre if you want a better idea of how she ticks.

Meanwhile, the final final final (pero que finales, eh?) results are in and CiU lost a seat to the PP. This is apparently due to the postal vote taking ages to arrive (what?! in Spain?! surely not!). This leaves CiU on 10 seats in the parliament. They're still talking about a pact between CiU and the PSOE but I somehow doubt it. That would mean alliance in Madrid but opposition in Barcelona, which would be a pretty unsatisfactory situation for everyone, parlicularly the electorate. By the way, check out this post (in Spanish) about the peculiarities of the Spanish electoral system and how it encourages a sort of bi-partisan situation. This image in particular is interesting, as it shows how many seats the IU might have if a different system were adopted. Give you a clue: it's seven times as many as they have now.

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March 13, 2008 | Filed Under PP, Politics, Spain | 1 Comment 

ERC head rolls: Puigcercós is out of Generalitat

The internal struggle in Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) between leader Josep-Lluis Carod Rovira and party secretary-general Joan Puigcercós seems to have taken a major turn: Puigcercós, until this morning the Minister of Governance in the Generalitat, has resigned in order to dedicate himself to his party. Or, in other words, to dedicate himself to taking over the party. His replacement will be Jordi Ausàs, currently mayor of La Seu d'Urgell. Carod Rovira vetoed Puigcercós's orginial nomination of his mate, Oliveras as his replacement, apparently citing 'the battle for power' with Puigcercós. ERC faired very badly in the weekend's Spanish general elections, losing more than half of their seats. I believe that Puigcercós ran this disastrous campaign.

Carod Rovira is being interviewed on TV3 right now andis essentially setting out his case for remaining leader of ERC to Els Matins host, Josep Cuní. His case seems to be "Yes, we need to change Esquerra to a party of government, not of opposition, so yes we need to change our policy and the way our party is organised". He has also said some faintly amusing things about his relationship with Puigcercós, like "We talk often, but don't always understand each other".

It remains to be seen whether ERC can drag themselves out of this morasse, and there will be some who hope they don't. But if they can make the necessary changes to make themselves more attractive to moderate voters, that will be good for democracy in Catalonia and in Spain as a whole. Resisting the creep of soporific bi-partisanship is as important as ever.

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March 11, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia, Politics | Leave a Comment 

UPDATED: Zapatero wins Spanish election

UPDATED 0001 hrs

PSOE win with  169 seats - the original projection was overly optimistic. PP: 154

CiU: 10

PNV: 6

IU:2

ERC: 3

To me, this looks like a victory for the right in Spain. The PSOE have maintained their government but IU have practically disappeared, as have ERC.

Information about the political parties contending these elections.

So Zapatero is returned as PM. It's unlikely that they'll have the 176 they're hoping for.

ERC have dropped by half. I was asked the other day what was the cause of this drop and I answered: abstention and dissatisfaction. I'll add that their posters were crap too.
Actually it's looking like a rout for ERC.

PP: A poor result. Rajoy will probably be out. This will bring about the completion of the right-wing's victory in the party. Esperanza Aguirre looks to be the PP's new star in parliament.

__

Updated:

Ciudad Real goes from PSOE to PP

Balearic Islands go from PP to PSOE (… or maybe not)

Almería goes from PP to PSOE

Canary Islands  go from PP to PSOE

–  I couldn't really keep up with this bit. Apparently, Andalucia has gone to the PSOE, again.

Zapatero and the PSOE have won the Spanish elections.

Rajoy has given his thank you speech.

Llamazares, leader of Izquierda Unida has resigned. What about Rajoy?

Izquierda Unida down to 2 seats.

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March 9, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia, PP, Politics, Spain | 7 Comments 

UPDATED: Spain election results live

Updated:  Zapatero's PSOE have won the Spanish election. See below or on this page for more details.

As I mentioned in my last post, thanks to a cool widget from the Soitu.es website, here you should be able to follow the results of the Spanish elections as they come in.

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March 9, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia, PP, Politics, Spain | Leave a Comment 

Spain votes - well, most of it, anyway

So the election has about an hour left to run. Apparently, turn-out is down three points from last time (which actually isn't that bad, considering).

El Periòdic d'Andorra's final poll data from yesterday indicated that Zapatero's PSOE had improved their lead slightly, and that both main parties stand to win more seats in what will be largely the same parliament as the last one. They also predicted a 3.5 point drop in turn-out, which seems to be spot on.

So it looks like Zapatero will be retunred for another four years. While I'm not especially enamoured of the PSOE, this would definitely be the better of the two main choices for governing Spain.

As several other expat bloggers are using the Soitu.es election results widget to track the results, I will too. Thanks to Graeme for spotting it!

Good night, and good luck.

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March 9, 2008 | Filed Under PP, Politics, Spain | Leave a Comment 

ETA enter the campaign

See Graeme's post (and my less than eloquent comment) here.

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March 7, 2008 | Filed Under Politics, Spain | 2 Comments 

Smash Hamas, smash the unions!

F-16 missiles destroy the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions.

Of course, when part of your genocidal policy against a people consists of ever-increasing radicalistion, you need to make sure that 'civil society' but most importantly, organised labour, cease to exist.

Also, in case you didn't see it already, evidence of US attempts to foment civil war in Palestine. Maybe they're pushing for a 5 state solution now?

[Via: Lenin's Tomb]

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March 7, 2008 | Filed Under 'Terror', Politics | Leave a Comment 

SyS - political posters and baldness: you decide

I've added some more photos that were sent in to me over at SyS, my new blog about political posters, stickers and graffiti in Spain.

I've also added a post comparing electoral posters for Josep Duran i Lleida and Joan Ridao, two bald Catalan nationalists with different strategies. This is not to be considered anti-bald propaganda or hate-speech.

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March 5, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia, Politics, Site news, Spain | 2 Comments 

TV3 poll: 91% unmoved by TV debates

OK, TV news polls aren't the most scientific of investigation techniques, but today's big question is whether the TV debates between Zapatero & Rajoy, as well as the 5 party one that took place in Barcelona, have affected viewers' decisions of who they plan to vote for. 91% say No which is proof, if more were needed, that the debates are actually a fairly useless and unnecessary bit of 'event programming' from the TV industry that have less to do with political discussion and more to do with selling advertising. I hope they give up on the live debates after this year as I don't find them to be particuarly helpful, though I will watch them if they happen again.

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March 4, 2008 | Filed Under Politics, Spain | Leave a Comment 

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