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.

8 thoughts on “Could this finally be the shaming Losantos deserves?

  1. Well he’s got another court appearance now, the police union has presented a case against him for his lies about 11-M. I’m not sure I like this as a way of dealing with these fabrications, it seems too easy to bring a court case against someone in Spain for sayng almost anything. On the other hand, if it has to happen then Losantos is as deserving a recipient as anyone I can think of.

  2. These guys are still straight franquistas, ‘poor’ Gallardón.

    Here comes another great quote from Losantos: “The (socialist) Government has only talked with homosexuals, terrorists and Catalans. When will they talk to normal people?”.

    Oh, and it’s La Cope, not El Cope.

  3. Graeme – yeah I know what you mean. But this is exactly how these sorts of issues should be decided: in the courts.

    I guess that the more mature approach might be to ignore Losantos, Moa and the rest of them: they are nutters, after all. The problem is that they have access to the ears of millions of Spaniards through the COPE network.

    It’s this media presence (including seeing Losantos’s smug bastard face on ‘Libertad Digital TV’) which demands that he be faced down time and time again in the courts… eventually he will be roundly be condemned for being both bocazo and idiota…

  4. Grey – thanks for the correction, duly noted.

    As to that other quote: it’s amazing, but taken at face value, that could still equally apply to the PP during their time in power (well, maybe except the homosexuals bit).

    I bet Losantos has wet-dreams like that one in Torrente 3 where he wakes up a Catalan. Idea for a video right there.

  5. Grey – actually, I think this new party, the UPyD is the equivalent of a ‘liberal’ right wing. But they’ve got some pretty wild policies which mean they will probably never get elected (like removing pretty much all self-government and autonomy from Catalonia and the Basque Country).

    http://www.upyd.es/

  6. Grey – I take that back. UPyD is proposing some truly mental ideas (like a complete centralisation of government in Madrid and the dissolution of the autonomous regions – things even the PP wouldn’t propose).

  7. Haha. UpyD are even worse than PP when it comes to centralisation. They are just a lil bit more open-minded when it comes to the traditional values but they are stronger Spanish nationalists.

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