Fuera! Fuera! What you won't see on Telemadrid

What you won't see on Telemadrid is this video (apparently made by Telemadrid themselves). It depicts the Queen of Madrid, you know: that one Graeme has a crush on, visiting the Ramon y Cajal hospital in Madrid. Many of the public health workers (or perhaps that should be: Trotskyite terrorists) were protesting in support of public health care, chanting and shouting slogans. Esperanza lost it a bit and shouts "You're paid to fuck things up" (my translation for "Estáis pagados para meter follón") into the face of one of the protesters, before turning and laughing with one of her henchmen cronies colleagues. The video's interesting because it shows that she has very little that is either presidential or human about her, as she gets personally involved in the argument, but only to exchange insults.

The real story, though, is how Telemadrid executives placed a total embargo on the footage, and issued a memo to staff to warn them that the pictures couldn't be sold to any other stations. This is indicative of the way Esperanza Aguirre understands the word 'public'. 'Public' means: good when it can be of personal utility to an avaricious politician; bad when it means paying people 'to fuck things up' (i.e. provide health care).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UO41VPoVhA

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June 14, 2008 | Filed Under PP, Politics, Spain | 2 Comments 

68% of Italians want the Gypsies out

Good to see that Berlusconi's coalition of the willing stands up for what's important. Sadly, an Italian recently said to me that the Roma people "aren't the historic people of Italy" and that they therefore should be extradited. Of course, when you ask "to where?", there's no answer. But let's not dwell on the details, eh? Berlusconi and his Lega Nord friends are hard at work on the new populism: how long before the PP see the opportunity?

We're off to Rome in about a week so I'll try to assess the local feeling while I'm there.

Incidentally, we just had a fantastic weekend in Hackney. London Fields went down very well with a few cans of Belgian lager.

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May 17, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia, PP, 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 

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 

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 

FT: PP has not moved on from Francoism

While the Financial Times is not normally particularly high-up on my reading list, it does carry some interesting political comment from time to time. A few years back, I recall that the FT attacked the PP for failing to properly criticise Lt Gen. Mena Aguado who famously threatened military intervention should Catalonia pass its new Statute of Autonomy.

Well in this most recent editorial, both Zapatero and Rajoy come in for criticism, but Rajoy and the PP far more so. The present government is credited with having 'managed the macroeconomy competently but [doing] little to address structural weaknesses such as low productivity growth, a weak technology base and a huge current account deficit".

Then, after referring to the PP's constant scaremongering and manufacturing of doubts about the integrity of Spain, this sucker punch:

Mr Aznar also negotiated with Eta, and allied with regional forces, just like the Socialists – as whoever wins next Sunday may well have to do. The PP’s problem is that its current leaders have not completed their journey from Francoist roots to a modern centre-right.

Thank you, FT. All it took was one paragraph but you've finally printed something which we here in Spain all know to be true and have been trying to get outsiders (as well as misguided expats here) to see. The language and non-dialogue of Francoism (if not its bizarre economic policies) live on in most of the PP's currents. The 'left wing' of the party (Piqué, Gallardon etc) has just been effectively shut down. Rajoy finished yesterday's debate with the words of the fascist Movimiento Nacional. They haven't moved on and many of us here in Spain have been saying that for years.

Unlike in the UK, general elections in Spain remain a choice between two generally very different political parties. The PP, which simply is not a natural party of the centre-right, remains deeply conservative and has been painfully ineffective as an opposition. It would be a disaster if they were elected next weekend.

[Via: From Catalonia To Caledonia]

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March 4, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia, PP, Politics, Spain | 4 Comments 

Rajoy - Una grande y libre

Mariano Rajoy rounded-up his vision of Spain at the end of today's debate by harking back to the days of 'España - una, grande y libre' - the catchphrase of the fascist Movimiento Nacional. Coming at the end of a debate marked by several major mistakes on Rajoy's part as well as continued interruption from Zapatero, the closing comments were particularly interesting. Zapatero spoke of 'convivancia' and correcting the mistakes of the past (he also named at least 3 times as many concrete proposals for the next legislature), and he once again finished up with 'Good night and good luck'. Rajoy also chose to make mention of 'la niña', the hypothetical little girl who's 'inside [his] head' - a device he was roundly mocked for using the first time around.

Rajoy said various things which make it difficult for me to call this another draw. His claim that Zapatero 'Lies constantly and never tells the truth', along with his accusation that the PSOE had 'done nothing' over the last four years were pretty foolish. He also tacitly admitted that public spening would be cut if the PP came to power, and roundly failed to win any points when he economy, Iraq and ETA were mentioned.

Zapatero appeared much more combative and self assured than last time, though he still had trouble filling all the time allotted to him (and continued to interrupt Rajoy constantly). He was right, I feel, to defend his stewardship of the economy, which is doing pretty well.

Though no-one can be certain of the outcome of the forthcoming election, I suspect that Mariano Rajoy's political career is close to collapse. I'd be very surprised if he survived what is now a likely electoral defeat. More on uncle Mariano this week.

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

A quick look at the various Catalan campaigns

As the election draws nearer, the various political campaigns are now all completely underway. Here's my brief summary:

PSC/PSOE

Carme Chacón, the 'airhead' (because she's a woman) is leading the PSC's campaign. On the streets here, it's clear that the Socialists have made an effort to show that the fight is not Rajoy vs Zapatero but Rajoy vs Chacón, obviously because Zapatero isn't that popular out here. They're also running mixed messages in their campaign literature, using "La Catalunya Optimista" (The Optimistic Catalunya) but also "Si tu no hi vas, ells tornem" (If you dont go [to vote], they'll be back" referring to the PP. So in short: optimistic but fearmongering.

PPC/PP

That strange woman whose name I can't remember heads up the PPC's election list. She's a miserable, grumpy sort of woman but I think the PP are resigned to the fact that they're becoming a minor party here. She has accused Chacón of 'using her pregnancy' in her campaign, which strikes me as a bizarre thing to say. What should she have done, resign and go into purdah? Solidarity, miserable hag!

CiU

The double-headed monster that is CiU is promoting manly decisiveness as its main policy. Mas and Duran i Lleida are both strong-jawed, photogenic fellows who are following the traditional line of 'more powers for Catalunya, but not too many!'. It'll be interesting to see if they get the chance to pact with the PP. I hope not.

ERC

ERC always run a more direct campaign in the Spanish elections than in the Catalan ones. This year's no exception: "Volem un pais de 1ª; per això volem la independència!" ("We want a premier league country; for this, we need independence").  They've gone with some ill advised posters which show Joan Ridao's bald head not once but twice in each one! I'll try to get some pictures for SyS this weekend. They also seem to be pursuing a bigger campaign in the Balearic Islands, where they reckon people are pissed off with being 'forgotten' by the PP & PSOE. Good luck with that.

Iniciativa/ICV-EUiA/IU

The Iniciativa campaign seems to have been pretty subdued, which will no doubt lead to further losses for IU in the Madrid parliament. They have some brightly coloured posters dotted around which look like they were designed by a child and which have too many complex messages on them. They're pursuing their usual campaign of sustainable development, higher minimum wage, shorter working week: you know, all that stuff that makes certain people froth at the mouth, kick the dog and slam the door. As noted previously, the fuckers pacted with the PP in Cerdanyola when I last voted for them, so as far as I'm interested, they can do whatever they like.

==

By the way, we were in Port del Comte skiing this weekend and had a great time, once again. We also revisited the pretty village of Sant LLorenç de Morunys for a glass or two of Voll Damm. There was something I noticed in the streets which struck me as the best symbol of the repression of Catalan during Franco's dictatorship: every street and every square in every town and village was renamed by funcionarios (administrators) to Spanish. Now, this isn't the same as banning the language out-right but it's an incredibly invasive, malicious thing to do which ensured that however much people in rural areas might speak Catalan in the market or in the bar, for official purposes, they weren't allowed to call their street by its real name. Obviously, the same happened here (Calle Escuelas is back to Carrer Escoles), but it struck me as particularly invasive in a village where paractically no one speaks Spanish regularly. It's these symbolic little things, calculated to annoy or hurt, which added together amount to an attempt at genocide.

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February 29, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia, PP, Politics, Spain | 4 Comments 

"Good night and good luck" - Zapatero

Zapatero closed today's big debate with these words, after nearly two hours' bitter argument over the state and future state of Spain.

Vital details: Rajoy's suit looked cheap and too small; Rajoy seemed much more nervous and uncomfortable while pretending to be calm (the photocall); Zapatero seemed much more nervous during the debate and interrupted Rajoy frequently; Zapatero was, intellectually, the better arguer; Rajoy's confidence won him points. Rajoy's point that people 'don't understand macro economics' seemed somewhat patronising and foolish.

In terms of the actual discussion, there seemed to be a roughly equal balance between who 'won' each point. The general opinion seems to be that this is 0-0, which is beter for Rajoy than for Zapatero.

Cuarto is reporting that Zapatero won the debate easily among males and those aged between 24-50. Women and the youngest voters were much more balanced in their tastes, though Zapatero comes out on top in every single poll.

Good luck, indeed, to the Spanish voters.

==

On a different, but connected note: allow me to introduce Simbolos y Senyals, a new project I've started. It's all about the political posters, stickers and graffiti which many of us see on the streets of Spain. My hope is that, along with what examples I can share, readers will send in photos or documents which can be stored together to create a database and library of political campaign material used by major political parties and smaller activist groups. Please take a look and let me know what you think. Also, please feel free to contact me with any examples of such material which you'd like to share.

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February 26, 2008 | Filed Under PP, Politics, Site news, Spain | 1 Comment 

Could this finally be the shaming Losantos deserves?

Shock-jock from the Catholic radio network La Cope, Federico Jiménez Losantos, is being sued by Madrid mayor Alberto Ruíz-Gallardón over accusations the radio personality made concerning the mayor's attitude to the victims of the 11-M bombings in Madrid. Apparently (and I have to trust El País on this, as I never listen to El Cope), Losantos repeated various accusations against Gallardón, especially that he "didn't want to know who killed 200 people in his city".

In a slightly odd move, Losantos is trying to call some top PP officials including Comunidad de Madrid premier, Esperanza Aguirre, Eduardo Zaplana and Ángel Acebes to his defence, I assume as character witnesses. These people represent the right-wing of the PP and they recently won something of a power-struggle in the party against Gallardón's slightly less extreme wing. They're also well known for strongly disliking Gallardón, despite (or because of?) his popularity among voters in the capital.

So either these people will stand up and defend their mate, Losantos (the same guy who openly claimed that "Zapatero has an enormous, and growing, responsibility for 11-M"), or they will leave him in the lurch and risk his ire on the airwaves. For the PP, one would think that their obvious choice would be to call Losantos and say something along the lines of "Sorry old chap, election's coming up dontchaknow, can't have this nonsense… firm friend… you're best off on your own…" (at least that's what the Tories would do). But might this not be difficult for the PP leadership? Could it be risky for them to alienate the far-right sector of Spanish society so close to an election? Or… could they use this as an opportunity to finally twist the knife they stuck in Gallardón and show their strength?

Actually, the court proceedings start after the election, but I suspect that journalists will be keen to know just what the PP's leadership plan to do with Losantos (and if they're not, they bloody well should be). If they can avoid this serious question in the run-up to the election (and they certainly shouldn't), what does it say about a party which desperately wants to wrest power from the Socialists? Either they're with Losantos or they drop him: time to decide.

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February 13, 2008 | Filed Under PP, Spain | 8 Comments 

When will the PP condemn Francoism?

As the election draws near, Graeme at South of Watford has been investigating a series of different factors which could change the outcome of the vote. The economy and terrorism are important considerations for many Spaniards, as are problems with the national infrastructure, education and immigration.

The right-wing PP, keen to regain power after two terms of PSOE government, have been hammering on about terrorism more than anyone else (plus ça change…!), and recently, Spanish Catholic bishops raised their voices in support of Mariano Rajoy's moribund campaign. One of the key points agreed on now by the major parties is that there shouldn't be negotiation with political parties who refuse condemn ETA bombings, past and present. People who tacitly 'approve' of terrorism.

But the PP have a history of tacitly approving much worse movements than ETA will ever be. Born out of the ashes of Franco's fascist dictatorship, the PP are the standard bearers for a type of neo-fascism, shrouded in the clothing of democracy but with no great love for democratic institutions, self-labelled of the 'centre' but retaining ultra-conservative views, explicitly in favour of the constitution yet permanently opposed to rescinding fascist-era legislation.

In fact, the PP fail their own test by refusing to explicitly condemn the atrocious crimes carried out by Franco's regime (which, by the way, did not end in 1945 as some would have you believe). Claiming that it's better to 'let sleeping dogs lie', the PP argue that nothing would be gained by their formally condemning Franco's regime. So why not come out and do it? The answer is that the PP want to have their cake and eat it: they want to contest democratic elections and then disseminate lies about the results; they want to claim to represent the 'centre' while constantly appealing to the hard-right of Spanish politics; they claim 'solidarity' with the victims of terrorism, but only talk to the ones who are members of one of their own grassroots campaigns. They talk about looking to the future and still refuse to remove Franco as 'Honourary Mayor in perpetuity' of the city of Salamanca.

I couldn't vote for a party with such a short-sighted view of history or such a terrible record of equivocation.

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February 7, 2008 | Filed Under PP, Spain | 8 Comments 

Church to catholics: don't vote!

A gang of bishops (yes, this is the formal collective noun) yesterday called on Spaniards not to vote for a party who 'negotiates with terrorists', in a clear sign that they want their fold not to vote at all. As everyone here knows, all of the main political parties in Spain have negotiated with terrorists over the last decade, meaning that loyal sheep have no choice but to either abstain or vote for one of the several Falange parties jostling for the fascist-fetishist constituency.

On the other hand, the bishops may have been suffering from the same collective memory failure that the PP have shown symptoms of. This debilitating sickness has led the right-wing party and its supporters to lash out at any suggestion that talks be held with ETA or Batasuna, even though this was precisely their own policy when they were in power.

My point of view: if the bishops don't keep their big noses out of politics, perhaps we should have one of those traditional anti-clerical carnivals which happen here every now and then. Religion has a place in some people's hearts but it has absolutely no place in democratic politics. We should all support the cutting away of any parasitic agency which seeks to pervert our democracy.

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February 2, 2008 | Filed Under PP, Politics, Spain | 1 Comment 

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