South Of Watford

Body Language

2012-02-01T16:46:00.000+01:00

It's not hard to see why Mariano Rajoy's minders are doing their best to keep their man out of public view. Spain's prime minister had his first European summit this week and displayed his absolute lack of communication skills. Not that he practices very much. Say what you like about Zapatero, he knew how to look an audience in the eye and speak to them. Even if he was constantly moving his imaginary box from one side to another. Rajoy always looks as if he can't wait to get away, and as if he has a bad taste in his mouth.

When he was officially greeted in Spanish by Herman Van Rompuy, who is allegedly someone important in the EU, Rajoy couldn't even muster a smile of acknowledgement. Instead we got the Mariano grimace and that bad taste again. The only time he smiled was when he told the Finnish prime minister that the imminent labour market reform would cost him a general strike. The remark was not intended to be reported and someone had to go and wake up Spain's union leaders to tell them what was expected of them. The outcome is that they are now almost obliged to call the strike, otherwise they'll make Rajoy look stupid!

If you want to know what plans Spain's government has for the economy then you really need to read the foreign press. The economy minister (or should that be one of the economy ministers?), Luis de Guindos gave quite a precise description of the content of the proposed labour market reform to the Wall Street Journal. All of which is curious when you consider that no such description had been offered to the Spanish people, and when the details were supposedly still being thrashed out between employers and unions. It's all part of the game, the content of this reform is said to be part of the letter sent to the Italian and Spanish governments prior to the European Central Bank acting to reduce pressure in the debt markets. We know the Italians got the letter, but both Zapatero and Rajoy have been allowed to act as if they are just deciding themselves to implement these measures instead of being told what to do.

Captain, This Ship Is Sinking!

2012-01-27T11:36:00.001+01:00

"Lo primero, el empleo" was the Partido Popular's slogan in Spain's recent elections. There's a "des" missing somewhere from that phrase. Today's unemployment figures here are once again dramatic. 22.85% of the workforce, 5.273 million people unemployed. There is now a serious expectation of Spain hitting the figure of 6 million unemployed, and that could even happen in 2012 on current trends. How distant now seems the time when a total of 4 million unemployed was regarded as an awful, unacceptable, prospect.

Is the 6 million figure alarmist? Well, let's consider what is likely to be the result in employment terms if the IMF's recent forecast of a 1.7% decline in the Spanish economy for this year turns out to be accurate? A deliberately provoked recession which can only lead to greater destruction of employment, and today's figures demonstrate clearly that the rate of that destruction continues to be enormous. But if that sounds bad, there is a further problem to consider. The IMF's estimate, and the Spanish government's own 1.5% estimate, don't take into account the likely effects of the additional 2% deficit reduction that is being demanded following the overshoot on 2011's deficit target.

Those extra 25000 million euros of cuts which have to be made if the deficit target for this year is to be met can only accelerate the terrible downward spiral. You cut more, your tax income decreases further whilst social spending on unemployment goes up. So you need to cut even more, your national debt increases instead of decreasing, you miss your deficit targets anyway and where do you end up? In the same position as Greece, Portugal and Ireland. It's not as if the outcome of all of this is a mystery any more, this has been happening in all the countries which have been "rescued" by the EU.

The Spanish government knows this will happen, and behind the scenes is believed to be attempting to negotiate a relaxing of the relentless drive towards austerity madness. Whilst officially denying it. Even the IMF, for god's sake, has finally woken up to what is really going on and warns that no good will come of this. The Bank of England, of all institutions, releases a report on the need for a new international framework to stop one financial crisis after another from wrecking the prospects of economic recovery. It's probably at least 20 years late but hey!

However, those who continue to sail complacently towards Fantasy Island on the always tranquil waters of the Sea of Fiscal Consolidation and Structural Reform remain oblivious to the perfect storm that is forming. Meanwhile Captain Rajoy was about to help the most disadvantaged passengers off the ship when he slipped and fortuitously fell into a passing lifeboat. Now he sits in a deckchair on the shore with his copy of Marca on his lap telling people that he will do what needs to be done. It's a terrible, man-made, shipwreck.

There Ain't No Justice Part 1

2012-01-26T12:35:00.000+01:00

Time for a South of Watford mini-series on what is already promising to be a vintage year for the Spanish judicial system. I'm hoping that putting numbers on the instalments will give me sufficient impetus to follow up with the rest but there's no guarantee of that. It might just end up like one of those Spanish TV series that gets abruptly cancelled, or it could go on for ever. It's not like there's a shortage of material.

Let's start with the case of the man who we may yet have to refer to again as the Molt Honorable Francisco Camps. Acquitted yesterday by a Valencian jury of having accepted free gifts of clothing from the organisers of the Gürtel corruption ring, Camps has won what was an almighty gamble. Whilst two of his fellow accused previously declared themselves to be guilty as charged on the (ill judged) assumption that the Molt Unpredictable was going to do the same, Camps decided to bet on a jury trial getting him off the hook.

His fellow defendant, Ricardo Costa, wisely didn't take Camps on his word and went to trial too with the result that he has also been acquitted. After a trial lasting several weeks, the nine member jury voted 5-4 for acquittal last night just in time to go off and watch the Barça-Madrid game. All of this in spite of extensive evidence having been presented of the relationship between Camps and the Gürtel ringleaders, and the evident attempts to manipulate crucial documentation in favour of the accused.

There are now many critical of the decision to leave the verdict in the hands of a jury, with claims that a more professional tribunal would never have acquitted the two men. I'm not convinced about this, after all I remember the example of judge De la Rua and with a post pending on the Spanish Supreme Court's continuing vendetta against Baltasar Garzón I'm not sure this is the moment for praising the detached professionalism of the judiciary. Juries can deliver seemingly perverse verdicts, but so can judges with decades of experience.

Perhaps, given the apparent willingness of voters in Valencia to vote for the corrupt, there could be a case for such trials to be held outside the area of influence of the politicians concerned. But then Spain's decentralized judicial system doesn't generally allow for that. We also have to take into account the separation of the case concerning the clothes from the much meatier part that concerns the possible illegal financing of the Partido Popular in Valencia via the Gürtel companies.

Ironically, the acquittal of Camps creates something of a headache for Mariano Rajoy. Having taken some tentative steps to begin a clean up of the festering swamp that the Valencian PP has become, he would send a terrible signal if Camps was to be restored as regional president. But the latter is still a member of the Valencian parliament. It's notable that there are no Valencian politicians in Rajoy's administration. Rajoy obviously has the power and patronage to put Camps in a cozy position where he can do little damage and that should probably be somewhere far from Valencia. Given that Esperanza Aguirre shows such little interest in being Spanish ambassador in Kazakhstan, perhaps a suitable position could yet be found for Mariano's old friend Paco Camps?

The Supreme Leader Is Dead, Long Live The Dear Leader!

2012-01-16T20:14:00.001+01:00

Silence descended last night on the deserted streets of the Spanish capital Madrid, as inhabitants of the country tried to come to terms with the death of Kim Don Manuel, known to all as The Supreme Leader. Reliable information is hard to come by in such a secretive regime, but it is rumoured that Kim Don Manuel had been ill for some time so his death at the age of 167 came as little surprise.

Although official media reports talked of many people crying today on the bleak wintery streets of Madrid, correspondents from outside have pointed out that it was in fact raining steadily all day. Regime supporters went so far as to claim that even the sky was in mourning for The Supreme Leader. All state publications today carried the same glowing tribute from The Dear Leader, Kim Jong Rajoy, to the dead man, although some foreign observers couldn't help noticing that the article made no reference of any kind to the role of The Supreme Leader in the terrible years following the brutal civil war that tore the country apart in the 1930's.

The two men were not believed to have been close. Indeed, unnamed sources close to the regime have confirmed that Kim Don Manuel disliked Kim Jong Rajoy. At one point The Supreme Leader even banished Kim Jong Rajoy from his native province of Galicia to work in a menial job registering properties in the remote, semi-desert, province of Alicante. Only after his subsequent confession of vaguely worded crimes and following the accession to power of The Greatest Leader Comrade Aznar was Kim Jong Rajoy rehabilitated and permitted to return to active political life.

Kim Don Manuel was known for his legendary achievements, including his famous espousal of regular bathing in heavily radioactive waters to show support for the country's allies and to promote the ailing tourist and nuclear industries.

The Return Of The Invisible Man

2012-01-13T12:12:00.000+01:00

Rumours that Mariano Rajoy had been kidnapped were clearly exaggerated. The great man finally emerged from hiding this week to give his first media interview since allegedly being elected as Spanish prime minister in December. There is even the possibility that he may deliver a press conference in the not too distant future, although it's unlikely on past form that he will accept any questions. Despite this silence, Rajoy still had the nerve in his first interview to claim that he would not be hiding from the crisis.

The pre-electoral strategy has been continued, and it seems that Mariano doesn't really want anyone to notice he's there. It wasn't him who had to explain the government's first package of tax increases and spending cuts this week in parliament. That package marked quite a turnaround from the unsustainable position that Rajoy's administration had held even after the election. Who is in charge of the Spanish economy? Officially its Rajoy, that's why there is no vice premier in charge of economic affairs. But then we have ex Lehman Brothers boss Luis de Guindos as economy minister and Cristóbal Montoro as minister for taxing people. Rumours of tensions between the two ministers have already emerged, and it is said to be Montoro that claims the seat at the head of the table for meetings on the economy when Mariano is off doing whatever it is he does.

It's funny how all that convenient dogma about reducing taxes to increase overall government income goes so quickly out the window when it comes to the crunch and the government needs to raise some serious money. Likewise all the rhetoric about squeezing the middle classes, which the PP used so extensively when the PSOE administration raised taxes last year. A fine collection exists of declarations, many of them quite recent, from senior PP figures on just how wrong it is to raise taxes to deal with the consequences of the crisis.

They now try to hide the dramatic turnaround behind the argument of the "herencia recibida", that the outgoing government concealed the true nature of the budget overshoot from them. The problem is that by far the greatest part of this overshoot comes from the regional governments, and which party controls almost all of these? The Partido Popular of course. It's possible, though unlikely, that they don't talk to the people in charge of their regional governments. It's also possible that the PP regional presidents have lied to the national leadership about the state of their finances. That has a more believable ring to it.

Despite the apparently progressive nature of some of the tax increases, the overall burden of paying for the crisis still falls on wage earners and the recipients of public services that are being slashed. The seriously wealthy in Spain don't pay income tax, they have numerous ways of getting around that. The only promised tax cut that has still been maintained is the potentially damaging subsidy from those who don't have mortgages to those who do. An odd thing to do when the government is trying to force the banks to accept the overdue downward revaluation of their unwanted property assets.

Meanwhile the association of tax inspectors has calculated that all of us who do pay our taxes are paying an extra €800 a year to fill the gap left by those who don't. They also say that reducing the submerged economy by 10% of GDP (probably less than half of what it currently takes) would increase government revenues by €38500 million, a figure which very nearly matches the estimate of total cuts required for this year. Instead the government has opted for what they present as an ambitious anti-fraud programme which, er, has a target 20% below that which was achieved last year.

At the same time the spending cuts are accompanied with widespread press coverage of all that wasteful spending from the boom years. The problem is that its not the airport without planes that is closing in Castellón as a result of the cuts, it's the schools. Nor do the cuts seem to be affecting a Valencian Formula 1 contract that is almost as expensive to cancel as it is to continue. This latter region, controlled for years by the PP and systematically ransacked in the last decade, is emerging as the leading candidate for basket case status. It seems that the national government had to step in to guarantee loans there in the first week of January.

The worst is still to come. The combination of tax increases and budget cuts so far announced only accounts for around €15000 million of the estimated €40000 million total for the year. As predicted, the main pain will be announced only once the Andalucian regional elections (to be held on March 25th) are safely out of the way. Despite the servile pro-PP press coverage about how Rajoy's actions have stabilised the situation for Spain, this in reality has far more to do with the European Central Bank throwing vast sums of cheap money at the financial system. The ratings agencies have already given signs that they intend to keep up the pressure. How long will it be before a Spanish downgrade is needed because of the poor prospects for growth that result, of course, from the very same policies that the ratings agencies themselves have advocated? The casino will be the last place to turn the lights out.

Walking In Lanzarote

2011-12-30T16:08:00.000+01:00

I'll be away for the next few days doing some walking in the island of La Palma, my first time there. So I leave with an account of last year's trip to Lanzarote, done at the same time of year. Lanzarote may not be as famous for trekking as islands with higher peaks or forests like Tenerife, La Gomera, El Hierro and La Palma, but we thoroughly enjoyed our time there and did much better walks than we had expected.

Day 1 began with not much walking going on. In the national park of Timanfaya you have to leave your car in the parking area and then get on a bus to be taken on a route around the area of the extensive volcanic eruptions that took place in the 18th Century. It's still a volcanic desert, but a spectacular sight.

A short distance down the road from the Timanfaya interpretation centre there is an area of the park where you can do some walking. The Caldera Blanca is a beautiful, and reasonably easy, route to do. Once you find the path from the parking area it's hard to wander off it, at least whilst you are walking through a sea of jagged lava. Despite the path it's still a good idea to wear boots or strong shoes. The Caldera Blanca is the one at the back in the photo below.

There is some climbing involved to get up to the crater, and if you want to make the route a bit more difficult, as we did, then you can descend down into the crater itself. I wanted to check out the stone rings in the centre. I suspect they are not very ancient.

We did a full circuit of the crater with fantastic views along the coast and into the interior of the island. It's a route that can be done comfortably in 2-3 hours and was a great introduction to the volcanic landscape of Lanzarote.

On the second day we moved to another island. La Graciosa isn't very big, has only two villages and a few hundred inhabitants, and is just a short boat trip away from the the northern part of Lanzarote. This is the capital!

We set off into the interior of the island without worrying too much about following a path or even having a fixed objective. Others hire bikes or even Land Rovers to take them around the island, but we just went over the low hills in the centre. Once again, the views were spectacular and the weather was perfect.

On the other side there is a wild Atlantic beach, with waves to match. Although conditions were calm this is not a very safe place to go in too deep, there is a strong undertow. But the day, and the walk to get there, made it hot enough to go into the water.

We walked back using the road that cuts across the centre of the island, much quicker but with poorer views. La Graciosa has a low key charm, and is a place where I could happily spend 2-3 days.

On our third day we went to a part of Lanzarote known as Los Ajaches. Nowhere on the island goes much higher than 600 metres, but in this area we did a relatively tough circular walk taking us from the hills higher up down to the coast and then back up again.

The reward for the effort was another day of fantastic weather and excellent views of the island. The landscape, as with much of the island, is fairly barren. Nobody comes to Lanzarote for the Atlantic cloud forest. But we could see the coast on two sides, including views of neighbouring Fuerteventura.

We were based for the trip in the beach resort of Playa Blanca. It's always entertaining to stay in a place like this on walking holidays, people preparing for a day by the beach stare in wonder at the Martians who eat their breakfast wearing full trekking gear. It was a good place to stay, a beer by the sea after a day's walking always gives things a different perspective. La Palma I expect to be a bit different.

Things Have To Get Worse Before They Get Really Bad

2011-12-27T14:17:00.000+01:00

It seems we were far too optimistic in believing that Mariano Rajoy would finally reveal the details of his economic programme in the parliamentary debate which led to him being formally elected as Spanish prime minister. Instead what we got is a carefully presented misrepresentation of what awaits us, with all the painful details still unrevealed. Supporters of the government will claim this is not true, with the announcement having been made of 16000 million euros in cuts in government spending. But this figure, with the nature of the cuts to be made still unspecified, is simply an unsustainable fraud.

It's true that the cuts figure represents the amount needed for Spain to hit the budget deficit target for 2012. But Rajoy's speech was littered with fiscal presents that make it impossible for Spain to hit the deficit target without making further huge cuts. Unnecessary reductions in corporation tax were promised together with the crazy reintroduction of tax deductions for mortgage holders. The tax on companies is only paid if they are profitable in the first place, and tax officials in Spain have estimated that the real average rate at which this tax is paid is only 10% anyway given that there are so many ways in which to reduce the burden. The mortgage tax deduction is widely credited with having been one of the factors behind the disastrous housing price bubble. If Rajoy sticks to these tax commitments, together with his promise to increase pensions, then most of the promised cuts in spending are already cancelled out by reductions in government income or increased spending elsewhere.

What this all means is cuts in spending way beyond the headline figure, or backtracking on Rajoy's few concrete commitments. A few short weeks ago it was education and health that were untouchable alongside pensions. You won't hear that any more. Despite all the talk of cutting wasteful spending, the reality is that the axe is going to fall on essential services and the employees who work in those services. All the money ripped off in those mega projects of the boom years has been safely stashed away. Usually where the taxman is unlikely to find it should the government surprise us and start to do something about the manifest injustice that leads to so many of those who have the money not being asked to make any contribution towards the cost of the crisis.

The bad news doesn't stop here. Nobody seems very confident about Spain hitting the deficit target for 2011, mostly because of the still unconfirmed deficits in the regional governments. Each 1% of variance above the target is more or less equivalent to another 10000 million euros in cutbacks. Lets assume that 1% variation and a generous estimate of a similar amount on the tax cuts; that's a not very trivial additional 20000 million euros of cuts on top of what Rajoy has already promised. In total well over twice as much as those cuts already made by Zapatero's government, which of course the PP opposed so vehemently when in opposition. Whatever happened to the Madrid PP's petition against the rise in VAT?

The reasons why the PP will not reveal the true scale of the cuts are more to do with political strategy, rather than the economy. Andalucia holds regional elections in March, and the PP has high hopes of winning control of the region after decades of PSOE control. So the full reality of the cuts the PP intend to make has been put back until after these crucial elections, when suddenly we can expect the veil to be lifted and reality will bite hard. The outlook for Spain in 2012 is tremendously grim, unemployment is going to continue to rise well beyond the symbolic figure of 5 million and there is no prospect of economic recovery.

It's wake-up time, particularly for those PP voters who were seduced by the comfortable but cynical illusion that all it would take was a change of government for Spain's economic situation to improve. The recognition yesterday by the new economy minister, Luis de Guindos, that Spain is heading back into recession just makes all this pain for no gain seem even more absurd. This is no natural "business cycle" recession. It's a deliberately provoked recession which will only be made worse by the spending cuts. There are those who will argue that it's a sovereign debt crisis, or even those who still prefer the morality fairy tale of spendthrift Mediterraneans punished for their years of high living. But the Christmas gift of huge amounts of cheap money the other day from the European Central Bank to the banks tells the real story. Those who warned that failure to deal with the causes of the financial crisis would lead to it continuing were right. Those who scoffed at them were disastrously and stupidly wrong.

There is possibly somewhere a lunatic, safely locked up and restrained, who regards the bombing of Hiroshima as an example of progressive town planning and slum clearance. Those who insist on regarding the deliberate destruction of productive economic capacity as a process of "structural reform" are still walking the streets. You need to have a truly impressive resistance to reality to still believe this kind of interpretation with everything that has happened in the last few years. But then the faith based economics which are so dominant these days accept no examination of the evidence. The coming economic miracle is just kicked repeatedly further into the future. Any other economic model which produced such dismal results would have been binned long ago.

Ghost Train

2011-12-26T18:45:00.000+01:00

With all the publicity concerning airports in Spain where no planes land any more, or where no planes have ever landed, here is a reminder of some failed projects from an earlier age. We did a weekend trip to Jaca in August to do some walking and had some time to take a look at the international railway station of Canfranc. A very fine looking building it is too, but a bridge accident in 1970 on the French side has meant that international traffic has been a bit sparse for the last 40 years. Not that there are no trains at all in Canfranc, a graffiti covered two coach service from Zaragoza arrived whilst I was taking photos of the station. But it goes no further towards France than this.

It seems that the most successful period for the Canfranc line was during the second world war, with busy trade between Franco's Spain and Nazi occupied France. The sort of thing that the revisionists who play down the fascism of Franco's dictatorship tend not to like very much.

Over in Cantabria there is a significantly less successful line. The station at Yera has never seen any trains at all as the Santander-Mediterranean rail link was never completed. We did want to take a look at the nearby tunnel of La Engaña which cuts through the mountainside separating Cantabria from Castilla-León for almost 7 kilometres, but we didn't have the right footwear for the day we were there in November. In any case the tunnel is not recommended for visits, having collapsed in places. Instead we went off to eat cabrito asado.

Mariano, Pan Y Vino

2011-12-22T11:22:00.000+01:00

The shroud of secrecy that normally covers one of the most mysterious regimes in the world was lifted briefly yesterday. The accession to power of Kim Jong Rajoy in Spain and his announcement of the new Politburo have excited foreign observers who were not expecting the man now known as the "Dear Leader At Last" to make any public pronouncements. He normally doesn't.

The official party organ, PPravda, has greeted the new leadership with enthusiasm and furiously condemned the legacy of Kim Jong Rajoy's predecessor. Little is known about Kim Jong Rajoy's rise to power, he is believed to worked his way up through the ranks largely by being extremely difficult to remove from any position that he has been given and by being absolutely loyal to the Greatest Leader Kim Jong Aznar.

The task facing the new leader is a formidable one, his country faces potential bankruptcy as a result of the ruinous and semi-clandestine programme of banking fusion pursued by the regime. Information about the programme is strictly controlled but it is believed to involve smaller banks being hurled together inside a collision chamber, the fusion being achieved thanks to lubrication involving vast amounts of public money and the combustion of essential public services.

Far away from Madrid's special diplomatic shops with their showy displays of expensive imported consumer goods, there are reports of deep economic crisis from around the country. Kim Jong Rajoy, in his first speech to the Central Committee as leader, promised the nation that he would now be calling bread "bread", and wine "wine". This cryptic remark is interpreted to mean possible significant price hikes for these important Spanish staples.

Economic policy is in the hands of a group of dogmatic hardliners who refuse to accept responsibility for the crisis. They don't get out much and therefore make no attempt to assess whether their policies are working. Much of the blame for the crisis has instead been apportioned to those few groups of workers who still have jobs. It is said that some of these still enjoy clearly outmoded privileges such as time off at weekends, a limit on working hours and even the occasional holiday. It is expected that the new leadership will move swiftly to ensure that such inefficient practices are eliminated. A long, cold winter is expected.

Lombok....Mount Rinjani

2011-12-02T15:00:00.000+01:00

I'm off to Malawi for 18 days for the traditional South of Watford winter break. So in the meantime I leave you with a long overdue post from last year's September trip to Indonesia. Mount Rinjani, on the island of Lombok, is without doubt one of the most impressive treks I've done and one of the most special places that I have ever been to.

There seem to be plenty of people offering Rinjani treks these days, of varying difficulty and duration. We opted for what seems to be the 'full' trek that goes to the summit of the volcanic crater rim; three days trekking and two nights spent camping on the mountain. We arranged it in advance and were picked up on arrival in Lombok, having travelled by fast boat across from Bali the morning after arrival leaving our jet lag behind us. The first night in the village of Senaru was also included in the package that we had contracted. Rinjani was hidden by clouds when we arrived in Senaru, but the surroundings were not. Later on that day the weather would get significantly worse.

It rained hard for most of the afternoon and evening, even though this was supposed to be still the dry season. Now where have I heard that before? We didn't feel too optimistic about the weather conditions on the big mountain above us, given what was falling down below, and we had to make some tough decisions on what to take with us on the trek, to avoid being overloaded on the climb. Our guide splashed his way to the hotel to come and give us a basic briefing for the next day.

The first day of the trek dawned quite bright and sunny. Even so, the mountain above still seemed to be covered in thick clouds. Knowing how cold it could be up at 3000 metres if it continued to rain we ended up taking a bit too much stuff with us. The trek begins at the national park office a bit above the village and we immediately started climbing through the forest, hot work even with the shade provided by the trees. Above us we would get occasional glimpses of groups of monkeys. The path is occasionally steep and it's best to have boots with a reasonable grip. The route is easy enough to follow, there are few alternatives and the surrounding forest is thick enough to make wandering off in the wrong direction difficult.

There are stopping points at intervals on the way up and by mid-morning we had reached the point where everyone seems to stop for lunch. We had already climbed some 900 metres up the forest path and I was grateful for a lengthy break. Our guide was also the cook, and the two porters who came with us were carrying the food, water and the tents that we would sleep in. Lunch took a while as the rain the day before meant that the available firewood didn't burn easily. After lunch the path continued to rise quite steeply through the forest for another hour or so, after which it levels off slightly and the forest gradually disappears. It was raining occasionally, but never heavily enough to make wearing a jacket seem like a good idea, I was already hot enough from the climb.

The next rest point is a good place to stop, because the last part of the climb to the crater rim - our objective for this first day - is steeper. I took this part very slowly, in total the day's climb was around 2000 metres and the last 2-300 were very hard work. There was a reward though. I hadn't expected to be able to see very much when we got to the rim, given the rain that had fallen further down and the clouds that were still swirling around. We were in luck though, and arrived at the crater at a perfect time to appreciate our surroundings. Several hundred metres below, inside the crater, we could see the lake and the young (in geological terms) and active volcano Gunung Barujari rising out from the waters. It's a beautiful place to be and the weather was on our side, although it soon feels cold after dark. Normally I hate camping, but there are places like this where there is simply no alternative if you want to be there.

The next morning the mountain was again very clear. Breakfast has to be watched closely, unless you want the scavenging monkeys to eat it for you. Day 2 of the trek involved a descent into the crater down to the lakeside, to be followed by the climb back up to the rim on the other side in preparation for the summit walk. Rinjani's crater is steep, wherever you look, and going down is not really easier than going up. We set off early, and I think we were the first people to make it down to the lake. From this position you get a close up of the volcano in the middle. But the main attraction down here is a short walk away from the lake itself. Hot springs gush out of the mountain and we spent the time before lunch enjoying the murky, but just hot enough to bear, water.

Maybe it was the heat of the water, but in many ways I felt more tired after the springs than before, it produced a feeling of lethargy which lunch only seemed to make worse. This was a shame, because the afternoon activity was all upwards, ascending the crater path to our campsite for that night. I was happy for the clouds to move in and protect me from the sun as I made my slow way up the mountain. We'd been worried about the possibility of rain but in the end the weather was more or less perfect as the clouds just seemed to move in when we needed them. Our camp for the night was still around 1000 metres below the Rinjani summit point. It's not quite such a beautiful position as the first night, as the volcano in the lake is hidden from view. In any case, we were not intending to stay up late - there's not a lot to do after dinner and you get up in the middle of the night to go to the summit as the best time to be there is for sunrise.

Warm clothes on, head torch in position, and we were ready to start the climb in darkness but with some light from the moon. I was never very optimistic about my chances of making it to the top, I was really feeling the effects of the previous two days in my legs and we had already agreed with the guide that he would stay with me if I couldn't make it to the top. To be honest I don't think he relished the prospect of the climb either. I knew after about 5 minutes of walking that I wasn't going to go all the way. The path consisted mostly of volcanic grit and sand and we had already been warned about the effort this would involve as you try to go up without sliding backwards. My legs weren't strong enough, and I was going painfully slowly. After a while Silvia left us behind and sped off up the mountainside with some other trekkers. I continued slowly but steadily, but with no real intention of attempting the summit - in the end I think I got a little over half way.The path had got a little easier than the first part but would soon get steeper again We had to shelter from the wind for a while as we waited for daylight and the first faint rays from the sun.

It didn't matter too much about not reaching the top, the views from where I gave up were still fantastic. At first light the lake was still partially lit by moonlight. Then, as it became lighter, the shadow on the horizon would become recognisable as Bali's Mount Ugung; that was to be climbed later in our trip. The sunrise was spectacular and we could see all the way down the mountain to the coast and some of the smaller islands close to Lombok. With the sun high enough to make us feel a bit warmer we made our way back down to the campsite for breakfast. Silvia told me that the final part of the ascent is tremendously difficult as the volcanic sand and a steep path makes going up so hard and slow.

Back at the camp a war was in progress. When we arrived the previous afternoon there was no sign of monkeys hunting for food. But now they were out in force and were incredibly bold in their attempts to snatch anything edible. The porters and guides were being very vigilant in keeping them at bay but you couldn't put a plate on the ground. As if getting up in the middle of the night to climb wasn't enough, we now had the descent to deal with. We didn't go back the way we had come, that would have meant going back into the crater to climb out the other side. Instead we had a descent down to the village of Sembalun. The first couple of hours was difficult, a steep walk down a gritty path where it was very easy to slip. After that things get easier, but hotter, as we crossed grasslands with little shelter. The final section as we neared the village seemed to take forever and I was looking forward to a good rest. It's a fantastic trek to do, but it would take a couple of days for my legs to recover from the experience. We were picked up by the people from the agency who took us all the way around half of Lombok to our next destination on the coast, Senggigi.

Aguirre Digs In For The Battles To Come

2011-11-30T19:58:00.001+01:00

It's difficult not to feel some sort of admiration for the discipline showed by Spain's right-wing in the run up to the general election. Knowing what we do about their internal feuds and hatreds, it was impressive how all of this was buried until the Partido Popular had won the vote. The left doesn't generally show such determined single minded focus on the ultimate objective.

Then it only took a few days after Mariano Rajoy's victory for the cracks to show again. With Rajoy still clearly far away on some sort of spiritual retreat, Esperanza Aguirre took her chance to regain some media attention and to demonstrate in the process that the PP is not as united as it likes to pretend. She did this by sacking the secretary general of the Madrid PP, Francisco Granados, alleging a loss of confidence as the reason.

Nobody should feel too sorry for Granados, who was the organiser of the little band of spies that followed various other PP politicians around for a few weeks back in the not so distant days when Rajoy was not exactly everyone's favourite leader. But it seems that he lost the power struggle to be the Condesa's bag carrier to Ignacio González; who has already been appointed to replace Granados in the party position whilst maintaining his role as regional vice-president.

This is more than just a minor adjustment of roles in the Madrid party. Granados had not been hiding his unhappiness over losing the battle with González and in the process his position in Aguirre's administration. The word is that his dissatisfaction with the outcome had led him to commit that most heinous of all crimes in the eyes of Aguirre loyalists; he had become too friendly towards the loyalist Rajoy wing of the PP leadership. Nobody who has done this in the last few years has survived as a member of Aguirre's inner circle.

What's more, the selection of González to control the Madrid PP is seen as a direct challenge to Rajoy and the start of the battle over who might succeed Aguirre as regional president in Madrid. González was one of the few PP politicians who openly spoke out against Rajoy after the 2008 election defeat, and this has not been forgotten by the Rajoy camp. One side effect of this was the decision by Rajoy to pre-empt Aguirre's attempt to put González in charge of Caja Madrid. Aguirre's ill fated move to displace Rajoy as PP leader continues to affect the stability of the party even as they (allegedly) prepare to govern.

The Cheap Seats

2011-11-26T10:00:00.000+01:00

Motivated to investigate a bit further after my previous post on Spain's general election results, I decided to check different provinces to find out just how few votes you can get in order to win a parliamentary seat here. The motivation to do this came from all the complaints about how the Basque coalition Amaiur managed to "only" need 47000 votes for each seat won. My bet was that there would be several places where it was possible to elect a representative with less votes than this. I was unaware before carrying out this admittedly slightly geeky exercise just how low that number of votes needed could be. Where a party has won more than one seat in a province I've applied the Amaiur formula by dividing the number of votes by seats won. Starting from the bottom with the name of the province or colonial outpost, the number of votes needed and the party taking the cheapest seat:

Soria - 16058 - PSOE
Melilla - 17791 - Partido Popular
Teruel - 19896 - Partido Popular
Ceuta - 20981 - Partido Popular
Avila - 24164 - PSOE
Segovia - 24711 - PSOE
Huesca - 29128 - Partido Popular
Palencia - 29290 - Partido Popular
Burgos - 30550 - Partido Popular
La Rioja - 31524 - Partido Popular
Araba - 31849 - PNV
Girona - 32834 - ERC
Zamora - 33936 - Partido Popular
Cuenca - 34958 - Partido Popular
Guadalajara - 35641 - Partido Popular
Lleida - 37229 - Partido Popular
Ourense - 37991 - Partido Popular
Huelva - 38499 - Partido Popular
Lugo - 39962 - Partido Popular
Tarragona - 40917 - Partido Popular
Illes Balears - 42115 - PSOE
Navarra - 42411 - GBAI
Albacete - 42628 - Partido Popular
Salamanca - 42786 - Partido Popular
Gipuzkoa - 43218 - Amaiur
Almería - 44970 - Partido Popular
Cantabria - 45663 - Partido Popular
Caceres - 46175 - PSOE
Valladolid - 47125 - PSOE
Ciudad Real - 47618 - PSOE
Las Palmas - 48132 - Partido Popular
León - 49547 - PSOE
Tenerife - 51244 - Partido Popular
Badajoz - 51775 - Partido Popular
Castellón - 52181 - Partido Popular
Jaén - 55031 - PSOE
Toledo - 55078 - Partido Popular
Cordoba - 56678 - PSOE
Cádiz - 58335 - Partido Popular
Zaragoza - 58749 - CHA/IU
Murcia - 58919 - Partido Popular
Granada - 59245 - Partido Popular
Málaga - 59517 - Partido Popular
Alicante - 59707 - PSOE
Asturias - 61057 - PSOE
Bizkaia - 61303 - Amaiur
Pontevedra - 66970 - BNG
A Coruña - 68041 - Partido Popular
Barcelona - 72567 - PSOE
Sevilla - 73610 - PSOE
Valencia - 82514 - Partido Popular
Madrid - 86531 - UPyD

An incredible variation between Soria and Madrid. I'm aware that this is not a completely scientific study, the way in which the electoral system works means a party could have won a seat by a single vote or by 20000. Nevertheless, I think it demonstrates fairly clearly that the weight of a vote in Spain depends very much on where the voter lives. Leaving aside the special cases of the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, the upper ranks of this table are dominated by the sparsely populated provinces of northern Spain. Meanwhile, the big cities are where you really need a lot of votes to elect someone. As for the Amaiur factor, they did best in Gipuzkoa which turns out to be almost the median province in terms of votes needed for a seat.

The explanation of all this variation lies in the fact that the electoral division in Spain is based on the province. Not only that, but there is a minimum guaranteed representation for a province. That's why Soria gets two elected representatives with only 50000 people voting. Some also attribute an influence to Spain's use of the D'Hondt method for distributing seats, because this system tends to favour larger parties. Even so, studies done applying the D'Hondt calculations on a national electoral division rather than a provincial level show the result to be reasonably proportional.

The smaller national parties, like Izquierda Unida and UPyD, don't stand a chance of winning a seat in Soria, Teruel, Avila or Segovia because the number of seats contested is too low for a party winning less than 10% of the vote to compete for. That's why these parties win their seats in larger electoral areas, principally those of the big cities, where the result tends to be more proportional (Madrid, for example, elects 36 representatives). The result of this is that a vote for a minority party in a large part of the country is extremely unlikely to count. That's the reason why UPyD have 1 seat for every 220000 votes they got, and why Izquierda Unida in the previous parliament could claim 450000 votes for each seat won.

It needs to be said again and again for those who refuse to understand it, but the major beneficiaries of Spain's electoral system are the PP and the PSOE. That's also why calls for electoral reform don't tend to get very far. In this parliament we may even get to see a bogus electoral reform disguised as an anti-crisis measure. Inside the PP they have been floating the idea of reducing the number of members of parliament from 350 to 300. Presented as a money saving proposal for austere times, such a move would of course only have the result of reducing even further the representation of the smaller parties in parliament, because it would leave the provincial bias of the electoral system untouched whilst reducing the number of seats in the larger electoral divisions.

Missing Person Alert....Help Us Find Mariano

2011-11-24T11:00:00.000+01:00

Mariano was last seen on Sunday evening shortly after winning Spain's general election.

At the time of his disappearance he was wearing a dark grey suit and is generally a bit grey in appearance. He was also carrying with him some very light intellectual baggage and a torn Post-it note which he told friends contained the solution to Spain's economic problems. If you see him it is best to contact the authorities rather than approach him directly, otherwise you may get involved in a pointless conversation which is hard to escape from.

Mariano's family and party believe he might have run away from home because he was scared of being punished by the German leader Angela Merkel. We have received a very reassuring message from Angela, via her interpreter Prima de Riesgo, telling Mariano that he is in no danger, and that if anyone is going to be punished it is the rest of the Spanish population for all that wasteful spending on Mercedes and BMW's.

Spanish General Election 2011....The Data Behind The Landslide

2011-11-23T15:13:00.001+01:00

The polls didn't get it wrong this time for Spain's general election. Not very wrong anyway, although many of them underestimated the scale of the collapse in the vote for the governing PSOE. The campaign seems to have made virtually no difference to voting intentions, at least for the two biggest parties. The PSOE's total of 110 seats is a dreadful result, and well below the hoped for face-saving result of 125-130. It is this collapse in PSOE support, more than anything else, that has given the Partido Popular a comfortable absolute majority. The PP now holds unprecedented political power at all levels of government in Spain, only two provinces in the entire country were held by the PSOE.

All of this has happened with an increase of PP support of just 500,000 votes. Indeed that PP absolute majority has been won with significantly fewer votes and just 0,8% more of the total popular vote than Zapatero obtained in 2008 to run a minority government. This is made possible because the PSOE have lost over 4 million votes since the last election. The advantage under the Spanish electoral system for the largest parties has tilted hugely in favour of the PP with such a dramatic decline in the vote for the second party.

So if we assume that half a million votes went from PSOE to PP, where did the rest go? Participation was down compared to the last election but not more than a couple of percentage points, so abstention only accounts for part of the lost votes. Two smaller parties, Izquierda Unida and UPyD, both increased their total national vote in this election by more than the PP. Izquierda Unida added 700,000 votes to their 2008 total, and have leapt from just 2 seats in parliament to 11 (if we include their Catalan allies). Even more dramatic has been the increase for UPyD, who added 800,000 additional votes to the much lower base of just over 300,000 from 2008. They got 5 seats, although only 1 of these is outside of Madrid (in Valencia).

Meanwhile the right-wing nationalists of Convergència i Unió displaced the PSC (Catalan wing of the PSOE) as the largest party in Cataluña. This was not the only stronghold that the PSOE lost on the night, the PP won a clear victory in Andalucia. The decision by the PSOE's regional president in Andalucia not to hold the regional election on the same date as the national one starts to look like smart politics. Although he may still lose power in March next year. We can't completely rule out the possibility that by then the PP's intentions will be somewhat clearer than they are now.

In the Basque Country, it was widely expected that the new coalition Amaiur would do well following ETA's declaration of an end to violence. Even so, few expected them to do better than everyone else! Although in total votes they still trail their nationalist rivals in the PNV, Amaiur took a total of 6 seats in the region and an extra one in Navarra. The result casts serious doubt on the future of the PP supported but PSOE led regional government in the Basque Country. You have to bear in mind that the nationalist vote in general elections tends to be significantly lower than in regional and municipal votes.

The distribution of seats resulting from this election has again sparked debate about the electoral system in Spain. Both UPyD and Izquierda Unida are seriously under represented in the new parliament despite having increased the number of seats obtained. Amazingly, the myth still persists that this is due to the system favouring regional nationalist parties. It is true that under a completely proportional system Amaiur would lose a couple of seats and Convergencia would lose one. But some other nationalist parties would gain, and Izquierda Unida and UPyD together fall short by some 25 seats from what they would get in a proportional system. There is, of course, a very good reason why the right in Spain seeks to focus on the nationalist vote as the source of the problem. True proportionality in the whole country would deprive the PP (with 44% of the vote and 53% of the seats) of 30 diputados and that means adíos absolute majority.

Mariano Rajoy....A Profile Of Spain's New Prime Minister

2011-11-21T11:13:00.001+01:00

A property registrar by profession, Mariano Rajoy spent 8 years occupying senior ministerial positions in the government of José Maria Aznar with no visible achievements of any kind to show for it. He likes to smoke cigars and read Marca.

Spanish General Election 2011....The Results

2011-11-19T13:00:00.000+01:00

I'm away in Cantabria for the weekend and I will be sitting on a train heading back to Madrid when the election results start being announced on Sunday evening. Assuming that I haven't taken the exile option of the ferry from Santander if things are looking really grim. But where do you escape to these days anyway? My absence means that there'll be none of that live blogging nonsense here on Sunday, but you will be able to see the results as they are announced (and in English!) courtesy of this widget from El País. From 20:00 Spanish time onwards. In the meantime it shows the results from the 2008 election.

So what are the things to look out for. An absolute majority, which all the latest polls have predicted for the Partido Popular, requires 176 seats in the Congreso. Any failure to hit that mark would be regarded as a bad result for the PP given the expectation that they will easily pass it. For the governing PSOE the aim above all is to avoid a result similar, or worse than, that which they obtained in 2000. In that election they got only 125 seats. If Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba does better than that this time he will feel that he has salvaged something from the election. Again, many polls have predicted that the PSOE result could be worse than this.

The PSOE cling to the hope that many of the undecided will swing their way and that they can buck the trend of the polls, as they did quite spectacularly in 1993 and 1996. In different circumstances. There will be no dramatic resignation announcements from the PSOE if things go really badly. Rubalcaba is not the party leader, just the candidate. Zapatero is still in charge of the party and it's expected that in the event of defeat he will soon announce a special congress of the party to choose a new leader.

Let's assume that the polls are more or less accurate. In this case much of the interest lies in where the disenchanted switch their votes to. Izquierda Unida, the main party to the left of the PSOE, has high hopes of obtaining a significant number of seats including several outside of Barcelona and Madrid which are the areas they were reduced to at the last election. IU argues that the technicalities of the electoral system mean that they are competing directly with the PP for seats in several regions. Barring absolute shocks, 15 seats would be an excellent result for them, 10 would still be good but anything closer to the 2 that they got in 2008 would be a major disappointment.

What we could call a weathervane party (blowing the way the political wind blows), UPyD have hopes of capturing more seats than the single one they currently hold. Their best chances are in Madrid. No polls that I have seen suggest they will win seats elsewhere. Their hope is that some of those who have abandoned the PSOE but can't stomach the PP will opt for them. The new eco-socialist party Equo will be happy if it ends up with a single representative (possible with an alliance in Valencia) and delighted if they manage to capture any more in Madrid or Barcelona.

Looking at the regions, the result in Cataluña will be interesting. The PSC, Catalan wing of the PSOE, is still predicted to be the first party here, although both Convergència i Unió and the PP are not far behind. This is a region where the PP have done spectacularly badly since Aznar's time, the fact that they stand a chance of taking second place is astonishing. In Andalucia the PP is predicted to win easily against the PSOE, and such a result will represent a major change in the region that, together with Cataluña, provided the PSOE with sufficient additional representatives to govern in 2004 and 2008.

One other very interesting result will be in the Basque Country. This is where the recent declaration by ETA of a definitive end to violence can be expected to have a direct electoral impact. In the rest of the country it has hardly been a campaign issue. The battle is on to see whether the PNV can maintain their position as the major nationalist party against Amaiur, the new coalition including those who were formerly supporters of ETA's political wing Batasuna. The new political climate in that region may also affect the share of the vote for the PSOE and PP, in the case of the former they may even buck the national trend.

Anyway, I'm not going to make any predictions, I've got ferry timetables to check.

Class Warfare In Madrid

2011-11-18T11:29:00.001+01:00

Yesterday saw the latest in a series of strikes by teachers in Madrid. The teachers, those who work in the public sector schools, are protesting over cutbacks implemented by Esperanza Aguirre's regional government. If you were to believe the Aguirre propaganda machine, then you would think that the strikers are just a bunch of lazy teachers unwilling to accept an increase in teaching hours from 18 to 20 a week. At the beginning of the dispute several weeks ago Aguirre was even trying to suggest that 18 hours was all the work a teacher did in a week, although she later had to retract that claim.

In the background to this confrontation is the model of ideologically motivated cutbacks which we may well have to get used to if Mariano Rajoy comes to power in Sunday's elections. It's a model similar to that already implemented in the UK where the government regrets having to do cuts at all, but then uses the crisis as an excuse for doing things which they would like to do anyway. Later ministers go off to the US to boast about what they can get away with. The change to working hours for teachers in Madrid is a direct result of Aguirre's administration firing teachers who were 'interinos', those teachers who have passed the exams but without a high enough mark to guarantee a fixed teaching place.

Despite this supposedly interim status, schools in Madrid were employing a lot of interinos and many schools estimated that 10-15% of their staff were disappearing at a stroke with the cutbacks. Such a sharp decrease was leading schools to have to use teachers specialising in one subject to teach others which they were not qualified to teach. Aguirre has denied this is happening, but several teachers have spoken to the press about being forced into this position. For contradicting the Lideresa, some have since been disciplined. Aguirre is determined to sit out the strike without dialogue. Some think she adopts this position because of her permanent desire for attention, others because it had the potential to make Mariano Rajoy a bit uncomfortable as he attempted to put the election campaign to sleep. The woman responsible for education in Madrid, Lucía Figar, is seen as a Rajoy loyalist and even a potential successor to Aguirre.

So where does ideology enter into this? Well, the total saving claimed by the Madrid government for these cutbacks is €80 million. The cuts only affect schools that are 100% public, no sacrifice of any kind is required from the publicly funded concertados that are mostly run by the church or associated religious sects. Aguirre's government has worked overtime in the last few years to increase the amount of money and resources available to the concertados, at the expense of course of the truly public education sector. Madrid is the only region in the country that has seen such a significant shift towards public subsidy of private schools in recent years, although of course there are other areas where concertados are important. There is a video circulating of Figar addressing a catholic meeting in Italy where she boasts of this policy of handing public resources to private religious schools, including the gift of land on which to build them.

Then there is the €90 million worth of tax breaks in Madrid that go to those who educate their children privately. There is no alternative? I think not, why should we subsidise the generally better off who choose to educate their children privately at the expense of the vast majority who rely on the public education system? The education system in Madrid was already two-tier before the cutbacks started, testimony to this is the very low percentage of immigrant children who get a place in the concertados. But now with the crisis being used as a pretext for swinging the axe only on the public, the gap between the tiers can be expected to grow. Welcome to the future, any resemblance to the past is more than coincidental.

Pedro J. Ramírez, Ralph Lauren And Wikipedia

2011-11-16T19:49:00.000+01:00

It's not all about elections, especially when the campaign is as boring as this one. I was in Sevilla last weekend and although the excuse for going was to attend Evento Blog España 2011 (EBE), I took advantage of the trip to enjoy the fantastic weather and some excellent tapas recommendations from SevillaTapas. On Friday evening though, I stayed relatively late at the conference to listen to the final presentation of the day by El Mundo's editor, Pedro J. Ramírez. Those who have read anything on my other blog will be aware that Ramírez is not exactly high on my list of admired journalists, but I still couldn't resist the temptation to hear what he had to say.

On the face of it, Pedro Jota wouldn't seem like a natural speaker for an event like EBE but he was scheduled to talk about his experience with using Twitter. Despite only having been a user for a few months, his prodigious output on Twitter may well be responsible for many of those error messages with the whale that the rest of us get when we try to catch up with what has been happening. It's a mixture of promotion for El Mundo and their paywall Orbyt, together with more typical autobombo from Ramírez as well as a hefty percentage of plugs for his latest book. It has to be said, though, that Ramírez has adopted a slightly less lofty stance than many other newspaper editors who don't really believe in direct online dialogue with their readers.

Pedro Jota also knows how to spin a good tale and to work an audience, so his reception at EBE was generally enthusiastic. One entertaining anecdote he told in response to a question about Google got a good laugh from the audience. He claimed that whilst taking his daughter around universities in the US he was presented with a copy of the page about him from Wikipedia and that this page claimed that "he is divorced and lives with Ralph Lauren". All seemingly quite possible, but Ramírez embellished his story by claiming that Larry Page of Google personally apologised to him for this entry and offered to track down the culprit.

This latter claim caught my attention, "why would Google apologise for something that appears in Wikipedia?" was my immediate thought. They have nothing to with the online encyclopaedia. So yesterday, just to demonstrate that I have little idea of what to do with my time and being fully aware of how Ramírez can play fast and loose with the facts, I decided to do a bit of investigation. The great thing about Wikipedia is that every single edit made to a page is still available, and I went through the edit history for his Wikipedia page. It didn't take long, Pedro Jota's pretensions to be the Spanish Bob Woodward haven't yet made him an international celebrity. The famous Ralph Lauren claim doesn't appear anywhere. For good measure I went through the significantly larger, and occasionally quite entertaining, edit history for the Spanish article on the man. Plenty of vandalism and the occasional insult, but no mention of Ralph either.

So what, you might say. A bit of journalistic licence to get a laugh out of an audience doesn't do much harm. But the really striking thing about going through a Wikipedia edit history is the way in which almost all vandalism or inaccuracies get systematically corrected or removed by the editing community. People put silly things in all the time, but they don't usually last long because of a general seriousness about the project. Contrast this with the repugnant, manipulative, hugely inaccurate pile of steaming horseshit that Pedro J. Ramírez and friends have published about the Madrid bombings and which has not been subjected to a single correction or rectification. You see, Pedro Jota was using the Ralph Lauren tale in an attempt to justify the need for "professional" journalists as opposed to the efforts of the amateur crowd in internet.

Spanish General Election 2011....That PP Programme In Full

2011-11-15T19:53:00.001+01:00

It's so unfair. All these people saying that the Partido Popular refuses to spell out what it will do if it comes to power. Fortunately, we have this video to reveal in full and glorious detail the PP's plans for our future. Courtesy of José Ramón Bauzà, president of the Balearic Islands, allow me to present to you the PP programme in just 18 seconds! In case you are wondering, this is not the abridged version.

Spanish General Election 2011....Game Over For Rubalcaba?

2011-11-14T19:40:00.001+01:00

We don't get opinion polls in the last week of a general election campaign in Spain, they're not permitted. That explains the flood of polls we got at the weekend, and the message of these tests of public opinion was not a happy one for the candidate of the governing PSOE, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. Not that anyone, even Rubalcaba, was really expecting good news from the polls; but the most depressing indicator for those dreading a Partido Popular absolute majority is that every single poll suggests a crushing victory for that party.

If next Sunday's voting fulfils these predictions then Mariano Rajoy could potentially enjoy an absolute majority bigger than that obtained by Aznar in 2000. That you would think would spell the end of Rubalcaba's career. He was the favoured candidate of many in the PSOE precisely because they thought his experience would give the party a chance of avoiding electoral disaster. As I watched him failing to make any headway against a stonewalling Rajoy in last week's televised debate I couldn't help thinking that a younger, fresher candidate might have done better against the PP's leader. At least in avoiding all the futile "you did this in 92" kind of barbs that Rajoy was able to use to avoid talking about what he might do in the future.

As Soledad Gallego-Díaz observed in yesterday's El País, we won't really know what Rajoy proposes to do until December 20th when he is expected to be voted in as prime minister. Spain doesn't have a system where the election winners come in the day after the vote and start moving the furniture around, and Zapatero's administration still remains the interim government for a month after the election. The way things are going, that might be a long month for José Luis whose only ambition for the latter part of his premiership has been to avoid the sort of European Union "rescue" where the body still gets tossed into the ditch but the ransom has already been paid.

It's odd, in the depths of the crisis and with the whole of Europe on the verge of another recession, that the campaign should be so completely devoid of content or controversy. This of course is the way the PP wants it to be. They don't want anything that stirs emotions, especially if it reminds people of why they didn't vote for the PP in previous elections. Rajoy gives very few interviews, and holds no official press conferences of any kind. To make sure that nobody was going off message the PP even pleaded with their supporters in social networks to surrender their accounts so that the party could bombard their followers with unwanted electoral spam. Both major parties feed their selected coverage of their stage managed rallies to the television channels and the result is a deadly boring campaign almost perfectly designed to not change anyone's voting intentions.

Spanish General Election 2011....The Story Behind The Polls

2011-11-07T17:00:00.001+01:00

Imagine a general election in a country where:

More people think that the right-wing opposition party would have done a worse job compared to the current government than think it would have done better.
Only 11% of those polled think that this opposition party has done a good job of opposition to the government.
The governing party attracts more ideological sympathy than the opposition.
The candidate of the governing party has a higher approval rating than the opposition leader.
Only 16% of those questioned situate themselves on the right of the political spectrum as opposed to 34% who position themselves on the left.

And, finally....this same opposition party has a lead in the polls of 16.69%!

This is the great paradox of the major pre-election opinion poll in Spain carried out by the CIS. A lead greater than almost any other opinion poll for a candidate and a party that inspire little confidence even amongst their loyal voters. The answer to this is perhaps not that difficult to find, almost 90% of those polled regard the current economic situation in Spain as bad or very bad, and this translates into the mother of all punishments for the incumbents. Bill Clinton's people had a phrase for it.

The best hope for the PSOE with less than 2 weeks to go before voting on November 20th lies with the 31% of those who say they haven't yet made their minds up. Many of those could well be disillusioned PSOE supporters who are not prepared to vote for the Partido Popular but not yet motivated enough to come out for Rubalcaba. If the PP maintain this poll lead on election day then they will have an absolute majority even bigger than that achieved by Aznar in 2000. It's unlikely that the PP once in power will ponder too much on the origin of their votes, experience tells us that they assume a majority in parliament to mean popular support for anything they might choose to do, no matter how out of step their ideological positions are with much of Spanish society.

The CIS poll is of additional interest for its predictions on how well some of the smaller parties will do. Izquierda Unida are predicted to get 5 seats, and their former allies of Iniciativa in Cataluña to get 3. It doesn't sound like much but remember they only had 2 between them in the last parliament. A genuinely big change could take place in the Basque Country where the new nationalist coalition of Amaiur is challenging the hegemony of the PNV for the nationalist vote. CIS puts them equal on 3 seats each, and it's worth bearing in mind that the polling data precedes ETA's recent declaration of a definitive end to violence. The other relative newcomers of UPyD are predicted to increase their presence from 1 to 3 members of parliament, all of these being elected in their natural base of Madrid.

Spanish General Election 2011....They're Off, In Case You Hadn't Noticed

2011-11-04T13:41:00.002+01:00

So the election campaign has now officially started, although it has been a very low key start in what may well be an indicator of a dismal campaign fortnight ahead. This, of course, suits the strategy of the front runner, Mariano Rajoy. With what still seems to be a fairly stable advantage of around 14-15 points in the opinion polls, the Partido Popular's campaign will be based around riding the wave of the economic crisis and doing nothing that might mobilise anti PP feeling.

It's all uphill for Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the PSOE's candidate. He's putting forward far more detailed policy proposals than the PP, his problem is that most of them run counter to what Zapatero's administration have done over the last couple of years. It's not an inspiring choice at all, between two politicians whose time has already passed and neither of whom really have any vision of the future. Rajoy and Rubalcaba have both got where they are by being loyal lieutenants and machine politicians.

There is only going to be one televised debate between the two men, and I expect it to be a tightly managed affair. It's some progress though, the PP has never before agreed to debates when ahead in the polls and Rajoy is the only one who has anything to lose by participating. He's a poor debater, coming across as arrogant and aggressive and he only got a higher rating in one of his many tussles with Zapatero when the latter was at his lowest ebb this year.

There aren't many in the PSOE who seem convinced that their candidate has much chance, it's now an open question whether Rubalcaba will manage to better what was seen at the time as a dreadful result the last time the PP got an absolute majority in 2000. The electoral system in Spain means that Rajoy can potentially get a huge majority with just a couple more percentage points than Zapatero's minority administration. Perhaps that could finally put an end to the common urban legend that the electoral system favours the smaller nationalist parties?

This same electoral system means that the election will be mostly decided in the areas returning larger numbers of representatives, in many provinces there will be no change at all. The PSOE has to do well in both Andalucia and Cataluña to stand any chance of depriving the PP of their majority, in Cataluña they may recover some ground because of opposition to cutbacks by the Catalan government but in Andalucia they could easily lose to the PP. It's interesting that Rajoy started the campaign in Cataluña, where the PP did depressingly well by running an openly racist campaign in the municipal elections in May.

With economic policy being (disastrously) overseen by the EU, voters for the main parties have in reality a limited choice between that of a party which enthusiastically supports drastic austerity measures, and a party which reluctantly supports them. Let's call it a Greek choice. There are alternatives, but the signs are that many disillusioned PSOE voters may just simply stay at home. Izquierda Unida have picked up some extra support but have a lacklustre candidate and in addition have a new rival on the left of the PSOE in the eco-socialist party Equo. It's hard to resist feeling despondent at the likely outcome of this contest. Spain is not about to get better.

Update: The CIS opinion poll released this morning gives the PP a 16.7% advantage over the PSOE, a bigger lead than most polls have shown. The poll data contains some interesting, and seemingly contradictory, data which might be worth a further post.

Spanish General Election 2011....The Future Looks Very Unclear

2011-11-02T14:08:00.001+01:00

It's an unusual step to release an electoral programme in the midst of a long holiday weekend, I personally can't remember any similar precedent. But that's what the Partido Popular has just done in Spain. Anybody would think that they don't want people to pay too much attention to their proposals, and they would of course be absolutely right to think that. The timing, and the absence of any detailed substance in the programme, says a lot about the PP's determination not to reveal what they will really do until after the election on November 20th.

This doesn't mean that we can't draw any conclusions about the PP's policies. What you see if you piece everything together is the hazy silhouette of precisely the kind of failed economic policies that currently have us lurching from one catastrophic financial crisis to another. With a particularly Spanish nod in the direction of the construction industry. A combination of tax cuts for those who least need them, privatization gifts for the same beneficiaries, combined with even less employment rights and harsh austerity for those who are already bearing the brunt of the crisis.

The idea that the PP propagates, that they can reduce taxes at the same time as hitting the targets on deficit reduction is nothing more than a massive con-trick. The PP has already defined their get-out clause on this mathematical impossibility, everything is subject to the state of the accounts that they inherit; as if they really don't know what that situation is at the moment. What I predict we will see if they get elected is a now familiar recipe of tax redistribution, those that have the most will pay less and regressive indirect taxes will be significantly increased to pay for this. The only people in Spain who really pay taxes at a rate equivalent to other major European economies are those on salaries. The PP's strategy will increase their burden whilst reducing what they get in return.

Of course one way to substantially reduce the deficit without slashing public services would be to crack down on tax fraud and corruption. Neither issue gets a single mention in the PP's programme, we're back to the days where not talking about something means it doesn't exist. So how about changing the direction of the economy, and attempting to catch the already departing train of new, internet based, technology? No, no need for that apparently in the low rights, low wage economy they're preparing for us.

The PP provoked some amusement last week when they presented their Madrid candidates against a background of Madrid's now notorious smog. It's not really that funny, the city has yet again gone way over the limits on permitted annual air pollution and didn't even bother to present the paperwork for their proposed moratorium on doing something about it. They obviously believe a change of government will relieve them of the need to do anything at all to improve the air we breathe.

In charge (if we can call it that) of Madrid's environment is Ana Botella, whose husband used to be big in the Spanish government. I mention this because the inclusion of the current mayor, Alberto Ruiz Gallardón, in the PP's lists for Madrid makes it quite likely that the incompetent Botella will soon be in charge of the city; toxic particles and all. Gallardón has played a good hand, for himself if not for those of us who live in the city. By making Botella his likely successor, he increased his chances of becoming a minister in a government led by Mariano Rajoy. Having the support of the Aznar family business can do him no harm inside the party.

Someone else who would like to be a big hitting minister, if we believe leaks from within her circle, is Esperanza Aguirre. Rumour has it she would like to be foreign minister. The South of Watford Institute for Political Studies reckons she is more likely to be offered an ambassadorship to a remote Pacific island nation, or one of the poorest former Soviet republics. If Rajoy wins with a big majority Aguirre faces a dramatic loss of power in the PP. This was already illustrated by her absolute lack of influence over the PP lists in Madrid. There is already much talk of this being her last legislature as president of Madrid, and it's quite possible that she will end up with plenty of time to practice her swing on what may come to be seen as her only significant legacy; the numerous golf courses spread around the region as part of the construction bubble. That's if poor visibility doesn't prevent play.

No-One's Slave, No-One's Master....Messages From The English Revolution

2011-10-31T15:54:00.000+01:00

I was in the UK for a brief visit last week, so I took the opportunity to visit the protest camp installed outside St. Paul's Cathedral. The camp is in danger of being evicted any day now, given the hostility towards it of the Corporation of London (a medieval institution in need of even more reform than the monarchy - see footnote) and the church authorities.

The original objective was to occupy the Stock Exchange, but Paternoster Square is firmly sealed off to all who don't carry permission to enter. It's a good indication of the priorities of our rulers. Oddly, given the claim that this is private land, most of those doing the protecting seem to be familiar looking uniformed public employees paid out of the public purse. I suppose that's what you get when you don't pay much taxes but make contributions to the parties who control the police.

A propaganda campaign against the campers has been carried out which will be familiar to those of us who read similar tales directed against the protestors in Madrid's Puerta del Sol in May and June. They're hurting the local businesses goes the cry. Well in reality the only businesses who might be suffering are those located in the aforementioned private land above. Starbucks beside the camp seemed to be doing very well, and next to it is a shop which sells, amongst other things, camping gear! I bet they're having a terrible time.

The camp seems to be well organised like its Madrid counterpart with an information tent, proper rubbish collection and recycling, and food and cinema organised by the campers themselves. The other ludicrous propaganda act against the camp was the completely unnecessary closure of St. Paul's. The picture below was taken from the steps of the cathedral and shows the distance between the camp and the entrance, there is no impediment of any kind to those who want to enter the building. I attended part of a general assembly held on these same steps, it was just like old times except with less sun and notably cooler.

Updated: Anyone who doubts the medieval nature of the City of London Corporation should read today's excellent column from George Monbiot.

Last In The Line Of Succession

2011-10-30T20:54:00.002+01:00

I read yesterday that Spain is now the only country in Europe that doesn't give equal right of succession to the throne for men and women. This follows the UK having finally changed the situation so that the eldest child is the one who gets the right to live well at public expense, regardless of their sex. David Cameron describing this small change to a medieval hereditary institution as being a sign of modernity would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

The situation in Spain is of course different. It requires a change to the Spanish constitution and this, as we know from recent experience, is something that is incredibly difficult to achieve. Perhaps if Angela Merkel could be persuaded to write a letter to the Spanish government on the subject it might help to move things along?

Dangerous ETA Terror Cell Identified

2011-10-18T12:12:00.000+02:00

Thanks to the tireless efforts of some of Spain's finest investigative journalists, we are able to reveal that the people shown on the front page of today's ABC are in fact members of ETA.

Oddly, for such a dangerous group of terrorists, some of these people look vaguely familiar. Kofi Annan, didn't he work for some international organisation? Bertie Ahern, Gro Harlem Brundtland? These are names that ring bells. Gerry Adams, Jonathan Powell (the one that isn't pronounced 'pole'), Pierre Joxe. Who would have thought that they all work for ETA? But in case you think it's just one mad newspaper making all of this up, let me correct you. El Mundo confirms that these dangerous people are the "pregoneros de ETA", and the especially reliable La Gaceta says that they are "los enviados de ETA". Surely that puts it beyond doubt?

There is another shadowy figure behind the group who didn't turn up yesterday at this so-called peace conference in San Sebastián. Tony Blair was either too busy sorting out the Middle East (a far fetched explanation if ever I heard one) or just not offered enough money to turn up. The latter sounds true to form. Hiding their true intentions, the sinister group called on ETA to definitively cease all violent actions. If it wasn't for our keen nosed news hounds they might just have got away with it.

What would a former Irish prime minister, an ex French interior minister and Gerry Adams know about terrorism anyway? The people who are here to really tell it like it is are from the party of the political manipulation of 11-M, together with their equally opportunist fellow travellers in UPyD. "Push off foreigners!" is the all too subtle message from those who get incredibly nervous the nearer the Basque Country gets to an end to violence. The victims organisations that have been hijacked by the far right simply deny the existence of any ETA victims who don't share their shrill point of view.

All of this could still change of course. Should Mariano Rajoy win the election and then decide to sit down and talk to ETA, all of those shouting about betraying the memory of the victims will fall strangely silent. There will be no street demonstrations, and the same newspapers that accuse mediators seeking peace of working for ETA will instead churn out editorials praising the wisdom of the great leader. We know this will happen because it's what happened last time the Partido Popular, under José Maria Aznar, negotiated with ETA. In the meantime, watch out for these dangerous people!

A Constitutional Nightmare

2011-08-24T20:33:00.000+02:00

It was planned to be one of the final parliamentary appearances by José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero as Spanish prime minister, and we knew in advance that yesterday's session was likely to include some new economic measures. What we got was a mini bombshell. The decision, announced by Zapatero, to change the Spanish constitution to include a budget deficit cap was a well kept secret, or perhaps that should be well kept from the Spanish people. It's going to be an express change, pushed through parliament in a matter of days using the combined might of the PSOE and the Partido Popular.

Others were in on the secret in advance, we know that opposition leader Mariano Rajoy was told previously by Zapatero. The constitution cannot be changed by a simple parliamentary majority, which Zapatero doesn't possess anyway; the votes of the PP are essential to get the change through. So what was going on? The general consensus is that the measure forms part of a secret deal with Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, in return for the European Central Bank intervening in the markets on behalf of Spain. We don't know whether this deal has been documented and nothing has been admitted by the government, but little else can be found to explain the apparent urgency of a measure which we are told won't even take effect before 2018.

This is no trivial measure, although it is in many ways a bizarre one. Enshrining deficit limits in the constitution is simply stupid, it's not the place for such a measure and almost more than anything else that has been done so far it represents beautifully the dogmatic, senseless policies that have already taken Europe back to the brink of another recession. The irony is that the lunatic policies of the Tea Party are having more success in Europe so far than they are in the USA. One country after another is being pushed into depression all so that a bought out political class can forget all the promises they made 3 or 4 years ago not to let it happen again. I used to wonder a bit how Europe stumbled into depression and war in the 1930's, the mystery has now been solved for me.

Countries need deficits, not all the time but they need them. The idea that a budget deficit should be legally banned is the dogma of idiot ideologues unable to learn anything from history. Unable to learn from failure either, as things get worse the only solution they offer is more of the same. The medicine isn't working, it must be because we haven't cut the other leg off. Pushing secret deals through parliament without any proper explanation and with half the country on holiday typifies the distance between the political class and the people they occasionally still claim to represent. A movement has already started to demand a referendum on the change, a logical and perfectly practical step with elections coming in November. 10% of the parliamentary representatives can force this to happen, but that seems unlikely to happen in the world of closed lists where dissent can mean no future.

But let's leave that aside and examine how the measure might work. Taking into account the recent history of Spain's Tribunal Constitucional let's ask what happens if the constitution is changed and the country exceeds the budget cap? Unless they're going to change the procedure too the next step is that someone (the opposition?) has to present a case to the Tribunal. Based on past experience they then sit on this for a couple of years, perhaps with a bit of inter-party wrangling over court membership involved to pass the time, before issuing a decision. By this time the deficit may be smaller or bigger, so what effect does it all have? None. That's why it's a pointless, ideological trophy. Of course changing the constitution back to stop wasting the time of the judges becomes incredibly difficult without PSOE and PP agreement to do so. There are some perfectly sensible constitutional changes which have been gathering dust for years because the PP refused to touch a document that they originally opposed but now regard as sacred.

One success of the announcement has been that the constitution issue completely overshadows quite a dramatic reduction in the already precarious rights of young workers in Spain. Employers are now going to be allowed to indefinitely string together temporary job contracts. Meaning of course that the contract is not really temporary at all, except as far as the protection of the employee is concerned. At the same time a "training" contract previously designed for employees aged 21 or under is now extended to those aged 30. I'm waiting to hear the loud cries from those who constantly bemoan the two-tier labour market as this is a significant widening of the gap. I'll wait in vain, because we know what the solution proposed for that problem will be.

It's Not Over Until The Fat Cardinal Sings

2011-08-23T20:15:00.000+02:00

I was hopeful when I arrived at Madrid airport late on Sunday night, the place seemed full of weary "pilgrims" queuing to check in or sleeping in the corridors. Many wearing the same T-shirt and carrying the same little rucksack. "Good timing" I thought to myself, Ratzinger has gone home and his followers are on their way too. But I was wrong, as I found out yesterday when I ventured out into the city centre.

The Pope had already put away his red shoes back in Rome, but Madrid was not free yet.One of the multiple ultra-conservative sects that the Catholic Church produces with regularity was awarded the centre of the city yesterday. The ministry of defence, in charge of the Cuatro Vientos airfield donated free of charge for the Pope's visit, refused to extend the free rental for the sect known popularly as the Kikos. No problem, said Madrid's allegedly centrist mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon. They can use Cibeles. So yet another day passed with a major part of the city centre blocked by private religious activities. Of course with the now obligatory noise for those living in central Madrid of what Twitter has baptised as elputohelicoptero.

Late last night they were still parading through my barrio, singing and waving flags. This was Madrid as a catholic version of Tehran or Riyadh. The right-wing here have loved it, a full-scale takeover of the city as what they hope will be the prelude to a suitably theocratic Partido Popular government come the general election. Apart from the lie (see previous post) over the papal visit not costing anything to the public purse, there are astounding claims for the profits that "Madrid" receives from the event. What they mean is that the usual suspects will do very well out of it. It's worth remembering that one of the main "pelotazos" of the corrupt Gürtel companies was the papal visit to Valencia a few years ago. That money didn't stay in Spain very long, and didn't end up in the collection plate either.

I've also had time to view some videos of yet more police violence, this time directed against some of those who took part in the march protesting against the Pope's visit. Or perhaps that should be just walking up the Calle de Atocha. Or doing their job as journalists. One shocking assault on a woman, followed by an equally outrageous attack on the photographer capturing the moment, has finally forced an official response with an investigation being opened into the easily identifiable officer leading the group of riot police concerned. It seems that journalists have become a common target of riot police in Madrid in recent weeks, with some 7-8 victims. There is much talk of how digital technology makes it easier to show what is really happening, but much of the mainstream media continues to shun the abundant evidence of events they are clearly not comfortable with.

Run For The Hills, The Pope Is Coming!

2011-08-12T13:16:00.002+02:00

August is normally such a peaceful month in Madrid, but this year has been different. Following on from, and almost certainly related to, the idiotic attempt to push the 15-M movement out of the city centre we are now about to receive a papal visit. The contrast could hardly be starker, whilst 15-M are forbidden to erect any kind of structure in the city's squares, the Pope's visit is seeing a massive occupation of public space. Retiro park has been filled with confession boxes, can there really be so many sinners coming to Madrid to see an elderly German priest? Cibeles has got a grand structure put in place to receive his holiness.

It's not just that a private religious event is taking over public spaces either, the generosity of the city and regional administrations also has to be taken into account in these times of austerity. Despite an insistence that the papal visit isn't costing anything to the public purse, the reality is very different. Hundreds of public schools and sports centres have been handed over free of charge for visitors to sleep in. The armed forces have have offered an airfield for the big mass. For private companies the event becomes a handy way of doing tax-deductible advertising. Then there is the 80% reduction in the cost of the tourist transport ticket for the faithful. Announced in the same week as the 50% increase in the single journey Metro ticket for everyone else that will help to pay for this generous concession.

Then we get the closure of some of the city's main thoroughfares to traffic for the duration of the visit. Great, about time. But why does it only happen when Mr Ratzinger is in town? Every year we get a farcical day without traffic where no streets at all are closed but the mayor gets his picture taken on a bicycle. Transport services that normally broadcast information in Spanish only are suddenly equipped to do it in other languages. Again, why only now?

There will be a protest against the visit. The government's representative in Madrid tried to divert it away from the city centre, without really having any legal justification for doing so. Ironically, they wanted to send the protest on a route through Lavapies that they prohibited back around Easter when there was a proposal for an atheist procession. The excuse then was that the route would pass too many churches! Finally they have given way and the fragile right to protest has been restored for the moment. It's the only thing about next week that I regret missing, because I'm out of here today; off with my rucksack to do part of Corsica's GR20.

La Plaza Privatizada

2011-08-05T12:51:00.001+02:00

The exaggerated and senseless government campaign to keep the 15-M movement out of the Puerta del Sol reached new heights last night, with riot police baton charging protesters outside the interior ministry in Madrid. Meanwhile the massive police presence, ever present helicopters and frequent closures of the Puerta del Sol to anyone are just causing constant disruption in the centre of Madrid.

Leaving Sol aside for the moment, let's take a look at the new model use of public space which a cash strapped city administration is promoting. The Plaza de Soledad Torres Acosta was subjected a few years ago to one of the least lovely remakes that Gallardón's administration has inflicted during his "hard rock" period. A sea of granite, with deliberately uncomfortable benches. It was done in a huge hurry after a murder in the square highlighted the degradation of the area.

At least the new square provided a play area for kids, and the slightly silly fountain with jets of water shooting out of the stone paving became hugely popular in summer with children and dogs. Not any more. The fountain doesn't seem to have worked at all this summer, and the whole of the centre of the square has been taken over by a privately run terraza. The newly installed police station uses the square as parking for police cars, even though there is a spacious underground car park. They even shifted some of the benches so that more cars could be parked there. As we can see, there is no problem at all as long as Madrid squares are not taken over by people who want to protest.

Anyway, enough about the squares. Let's take a walk around the wider, historic, barrio of Malasaña. Several buildings in the barrio display plaques commemorating famous people who have lived there. Including heroines of the 2 de Mayo uprising against Napoleon's troops, or feminist pioneers like Clara Campoamor.

More recently, there have been some new additions on different buildings around Malasaña - celebrating a different kind of uprising. My favourite combines the stencilled face of Aznar on the lamp post with the message on the wall.

La Plaza Tomada

2011-08-03T14:28:00.000+02:00

It was a pathetic sight last night in Madrid. Circling the (police) wagons in the Puerta del Sol, all entrances to the square blocked by fully equipped riot cops. The police helicopter had been flying low over central Madrid for hours. At one point, over the heads of those in front of me, I caught a glimpse of the barrel of one of those guns the police use to fire gas canisters or rubber bullets. Preparing for a major assault, obviously. But it wasn't going to happen.

"Estas son nuestras armas" (these are our weapons) has become one of the standard chants of those taking part in protests organised by the 15-M movement. Shouted with your empty hands raised in the air. The authorities just don't get it, and the kind of over the top policing that converts many a peaceful protest into a public order problem found itself unable to cope yet again with a movement that refuses to play by the traditional rules.

Last night, following the clearing of the square yesterday morning, the Puerta del Sol was closed to everyone except the police. Metro trains didn't even stop there. At first the police allowed some to enter the square, based it seems almost entirely on the appearance of the people who wanted to pass. Although well-dressed journalists were not admitted. Again they don't get it. Five "indignados" in a taxi dressed in business clothes were able to pass the barrier the police had put last week around the Spanish parliament. Eventually last night they decided they had to close the square to everyone.

People came to protest against the eviction that had taken place earlier in the day. The authorities might have calculated that August was a good time to do it, but Madrid is no longer as empty in this holiday month as it used to be. Yet again a miscalculation by those in charge turns out to be a boost for 15-M. The streets around the Puerta del Sol filled with protesters, but the outcome wasn't going to be just a sterile stand-off for hours between demonstrators and riot police. Once again, the old rules didn't apply.

We arrived a bit late, to find crowds of people moving down the Gran Via, but not walking on the pavement. "Where are you all going?" we asked someone. "For a walk" was the reply. Half the Gran Via closed to traffic was much better than none of it. Down in Cibeles, where they are already building the stand for the Pope's visit, there were thousands of people and Real Madrid hadn't won anything. Nobody stopped long there, and soon the whole of the Paseo del Prado was occupied by protestors. The police were still busy recreating Custer's last stand inside the city centre.

Nobody gave any orders, another thing the idiots who govern us fail to understand. Everyone more or less knew where we wanted to go, so the Calle de Atocha ended up closed to traffic too as the ever bigger crowd turned back towards Sol, observed by bemused tourists. "Esto es lo que pasa por echarnos de la plaza" was probably the chant of the night. But Sol is not the only square in Madrid, after stopping for a while at the police line where the man with the gun was probably feeling anxious to test his weapon the protest moved onto the nearby Plaza Mayor to celebrate a mass assembly. Custer's men spent the night in the otherwise deserted square, protecting their wagons. They're still there this morning. Was it worth it?

Haven't You Got A Home To Go To?

2011-08-02T10:50:00.002+02:00

As I write this post the police helicopters are still clattering over the centre of Madrid. They've been there since early this morning, as part of a huge police operation to remove all traces of the 15-M protest movement from Madrid's Puerta del Sol. All this overkill in reality is just removing the wooden information post that was set up when the camp was dismantled in Sol a few weeks ago. Today's operation follows a failed attempt to do something similar last week which ended with police charges against peaceful protesters in the Paseo del Prado. August, when the city is at its quietest, is no doubt seen as a good time for moving against 15-M after the relatively lighter attitude adopted by the authorities in May and June. After all, the Pope is due to arrive soon.

The Madrid police have been complaining recently about not being able to take on 15-M, following some incidents where protesters have interrupted the identity controls that police operate in selected Metro stations around the city. These controls are aimed against immigrants, as the targets are inevitably those who do not look like locals. Officially they do not exist, as the government has consistently denied that they take place. Photographers and journalists who have challenged this denial of reality have ended up being arrested and having their equipment seized. So we are left with the somewhat surreal situation where the police complain about not being able to carry out a task which their political bosses claim is not carried out anyway. Stopping something which doesn't happen can hardly be a crime?

Another cause of tension between protesters and police has been the campaign to stop people being evicted from their homes for mortgage arrears. Several judicial evictions have been stopped by protesters in recent weeks, leading the authorities to respond by massively increasing the police presence at these events. 120 police were used to evict someone owing a couple of thousand euros in Madrid last week. The cost of this operation? We're not entitled to know. In Barcelona, where the police are allowed to use as much violence as they like, we were treated to the ridiculous sight of the Mossos de Esquadra using ladders to force entry into an apartment and evict a family. Accompanied by the now familiar baton charges that they seem to use against any protest in the city.

It's become almost commonplace for people to see a busy restaurant in Spain and remark "Crisis, what crisis?". There is a contrasting reality, the annual rate of home repossessions is running at around 90,000. Although the issue of Spain's mortgage legislation has been debated in recent months, the true scale of what is going on has only become apparent since 15-M took to the streets. Spanish mortgages promise a win-win situation for the banks who enticed so many people into huge mortgage commitments and who get to chase these same people for the remaining debt even after they have repossessed the property and in many cases sold it on at a knock-down price. There is no strong incentive for the banks to try and get value for money out of the property if they know they can continue to pursue the mortgage holder.

The government and the opposition Partido Popular have both come out in clear opposition to the idea that those who can't pay their mortgage can hand back the keys to the bank and clear the debt by doing so. Neither party is comfortable with any idea that involves doing something that the banks don't want to contemplate. It's just not enough that we all assume the debts of the banks. Some recent concessions on the amount of a person's salary that the banks can seize as part of the eternal mortgage recovery process were a nod in the direction of 15-M, but the movement will continue to highlight the cases of thousands of people being removed from their homes with no evident alternative and with only a debt to the banks to take with them. The victims of the crisis are no longer hidden from sight, and ever heavier policing is unlikely to solve that problem.

Tough Times For The TDT Party

2011-07-26T20:17:00.001+02:00

Continuing with the media theme that I posted on yesterday, it's worth taking a look at how things are going for those on the right to the very far right of the political spectrum. With the Partido Popular expected to return to power either later this year or in the first quarter of 2012, a change of government can't come soon enough for the now numerous ultras in Spain's media scene.

The principal problem is that the generosity of PP controlled regional governments in handing out digital (TDT) TV licences to their political allies has led to a situation of severe overcrowding. In areas like Madrid you could get until recently Libertad Digital, Veo7, Intereconomía and even Popular TV for the over religious. This of course in the area where we already have Telemadrid, under the ever tighter political control of Esperanza Aguirre.

Even for the most rabid sections of Spain's less than moderate right-wing, there has to be some limit on the number of shouting match political tertulias with more or less the same band of participants screeching their hatred of Zapatero night after night; year after year. Something had to give as none of these stations attracts huge audiences and there has been a dramatic decline in income from advertising. Strangely the first to go was Veo7, owned by Unidad Editorial which also owns El Mundo and Marca.

You would think that such a powerful media group would be able to sustain a presence amongst the new digital channels, but these are hard times and the group is not doing well. El Mundo's attempt to inflate the number of users for it's Orbyt online news platform by handing subscriptions out on Twitter doesn't disguise the fact that it is not covering the sharp decline in revenue from newspaper sales that is affecting almost everyone.

The cracks have shown elsewhere too, with Intereconomía reduced a few weeks ago to asking its viewers to support them with donations, truly a test of faith. The video explaining the move has its funny side as they go to enormous lengths to try to claim that the move has nothing to do with the precarious nature of their business. They don't offer anything at all in return for the money, not even shares. The economic liberalism these channels profess is quickly tested when it comes to being given money by viewers or given free licences by political allies. Just as it will be if they get to remind an incoming PP government about where all that lucrative "Gobierno de España" advertising money can go.

Since we're on the subject of Intereconomía I think La Gaceta deserves a special mention for emphasising at the weekend that the extreme right wing terrorist who killed so many in Norway was allegedly a freemason. So that that was why he did it. Watch out with Prince Philip. I've never really explored the roots of the Francoist obsession with the masons, but the fact that Intereconomía finds it to be the most relevant factor tells its own story about their ideological roots. The right in Spain is generally very uncomfortable with what happened in Norway, some even attempting to suggest that the ideology of hate that inspired the attack shouldn't be linked to the actions of its followers. Now why would they say that?

Who Needs Murdoch Anyway?

2011-07-25T21:16:00.002+02:00

With the phone hacking scandal in full flow in the UK last week, we got a useful reminder here in Spain that media abuse of power is not just confined to Rupert Murdoch. Whenever El País carries an editorial on its front page these days it almost always means that Juan Luis Cebrián, executive president of the group owning the paper, has decided to launch another attack on Spanish prime minister Zapatero. So it was this time, turning to the inside pages and unsigned editorial apart there was a separate full page article from Cebrián calling on Zapatero to go now and call for early elections.

It never used to be this way. When the then Grupo Prisa wanted to get its way with PSOE led administrations in Spain they just had to pop round to the prime ministerial residence like Rupert does in the UK and tell the man what they wanted. That worked with Felipe Gonzalez, and to some extent with Zapatero. But there has been a breakdown in the relationship as Zapatero's government played footsie with the up and coming Mediapro, locked in a bitter battle with Prisa over lucrative televised football rights. So Cebrián has been making it clear for some time his dislike of Zapatero, and given that Prisa, now owned by the Liberty group, have the much more friendly Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba as PSOE candidate for the next election they are keen for the natural order of things to be restored.

Of course Cebrián didn't put things this way. His article was dressed up in calls for action to deal with the sensation of crisis in the country with the possibility of the markets getting their evil way at any moment. But nobody who keeps even half an eye on the news can seriously try to sustain that holding elections does anything at all to lift those pressures. The simple answer to anyone who tries that argument is Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. Cebrián tried even to make a few nods in the direction of the 15-M movement in his piece, but he as much as anyone else is part of that generation from the post-transition period that had the chance to make a difference and decided not to do it. The self-interested exercise of corporate power that Cebrián and company have specialized in has no common meeting point with 15-M. Both of the possible candidates to be the next prime minister of Spain are also relics of that same generation with nothing fresh to offer the country.

A Rajoy victory in the election will simply swing the position of favoured media group sharply to the right. In this context the decision of El Mundo director Pedro J. Ramirez to bet in 2008 against Rajoy holding on in the Partido Popular is starting to look unwise. Ramirez enjoyed cozy dinners chez Aznar the last time the PP was in government, and will be keen not to lose influence to rivals. El Mundo's position as the biggest selling right wing paper is under threat from a revived and more loyalist ABC, but they can still use their influence to put pressure on a government that will in any case be entirely open to that way of doing business. Meanwhile Aznar, in his position as a Murdoch employee, is amongst those contracting expensive lawyers to deal with the possible legal consequences of the UK scandal.

Tres Tristes Trajes....The Downfall Of Francisco Camps

2011-07-21T17:24:00.002+02:00

The pressure finally told. Ever since it was formally announced a few days ago that Francisco Camps would definitely face a trial for having accepted gifts of expensive clothing from the companies involved in the Gürtel corruption case, the Valencian president had almost completely disappeared from view; all official engagements were cancelled. Then, following what seems to have been some very intense behind the scenes negotiations with the national Partido Popular, he suddenly announced his resignation yesterday afternoon.

On his way out of the Valencian presidency Camps has created an even bigger judicial mess than that which existed before his resignation. The plan for yesterday, as pacted with the national PP, was that all four of the accused in the case were to submit a document admitting their guilt with the aim of avoiding completely an embarrassing trial. Camps and the others would pay their fines and that would be the end of this part of the story, even though it would have left Valencia with a president convicted for corruption. All the signs were that the national party would not force Camps out even if he was found guilty.

It was probably the doubt about whether he could really accept the rap and still remain as president that forced Camps to change his mind after a day of uncertainty. All a bit sad for two of the other accused who had already turned up to the courts to sign their admission of guilt. The only way of avoiding a trial altogether was for all four of the accused to do this, but with Camps still refusing to take that step there will now have to be a trial. Those who have now formally accepted their guilt will find it hard, if not legally impossible, to retract. The two, Camps and Ricardo Costa, that still formally refuse to accept the accusation against them are now tainted by those that have.

The man who had really taken the full measure of Camps was Costa, previously well known for having resigned but not really from his position in the Valencian PP. Costa refused to sign the admission of guilt until after Camps had done so, demonstrating in the process just what levels of confidence the people who really know Camps have when it comes to trusting his word. Costa had in any case been the most unwilling to sign up to the supposed deal, apparently seeking assurances from the PP that his sacrifice would be compensated and he would not be left out in the cold if he did so.

Finally Camps has had to face harsh realities that he thought for so long he could just wish away. The truth is he almost got away with it, only the Supreme Court ordering the Valencian courts to carry out a proper investigation after the initial acquittal has forced the situation that we now have. We know that Camps has not told the truth, but he still can't do anything that publicly acknowledges this fact. Last week it was reported that he had changed his defence strategy from claiming that he had paid himself for the clothes to admitting accepting the gifts but with the excuse that he was wearing the hat of leader of the Valencian PP at the time, rather than that of regional president. Leaving aside the bizarre distinction between his different roles when presents are being handed out, he can't simultaneously try to sustain both versions.

The national PP has done little so far to force Camps to act. The problem has been there for two years but that is a short time for someone like Mariano Rajoy. The PP's leader could simply have refused to accept Camps as a candidate in the May elections, but instead the two men stood side by side in a grotesque end of campaign rally in Valencia. In the end it has been the prospect of a trial coming either before or even in the midst of an autumn national election campaign that has forced the national PP to put pressure on Camps. It's worth remembering that this is the small part of Gürtel in Valencia, the real meat comes in that part of the case dealing with serious accusations of illegal financing of the PP in the region. Then there are the other corruption cases affecting the Valencian PP. Mr Camps and his fine clothes are in some ways just a headline grabbing sideshow.

Rajoy supporters claim yesterdays events as vindicating his do nothing style of dealing with problems, letting people be dragged down by the force of circumstances rather than acting directly against them. Many are starting to wonder whether Rajoy's way of dealing with the internal problems in the PP is also going to be his way of dealing with important questions of government. The signs are that it will be, try asking any Rajoy supporter for a list of the man's achievements in the eight years he spent in senior positions in Aznar's administration. The man who leaves no footprints has just dozed his way through another crisis.

The 19J In Madrid

2011-07-10T13:28:00.003+02:00

I'm getting further and further behind with my posts on this blog, a mixture of other commitments, summer laziness, disastrous time management and an occasional inability to write all come together to create this situation. So here is a much delayed post on the 19th June demonstration in Madrid, the last major mobilisation from the 15-M movement.

The march was divided into several geographical "columns" which converged as they got closer to the finishing point, the Neptuno fountain just down the road from the Spanish parliament. I joined the group leaving from the Plaza del Dos de Mayo, which made its way through the streets of Malasaña until it met with another group coming from Chueca close to the Metro station of Tribunal.

This was a meeting of the barrios, the district level groups that have now taken up much of the campaign work since the protest camp in the Puerta del Sol was dismantled. The enlarged group then made it's way up to the Glorieta de Bilbao to meet the sizeable contingent coming down from the barrio of Chamberí.

The preceding week had seen a torrent of propaganda from the right-wing press about how violent the 15-M movement was following some not really very violent at all incidents outside the Catalan parliament. It's worth pointing out that there wasn't even a single police officer in sight until the march united with the Chamberí contingent. Then they put a car and officer in front to control traffic as the larger and noisier demonstration made its way down to the Plaza de Colon. On the way we had to pass the national headquarters of the Partido Popular where a single van of the national police was stationed to deal with the supposedly wild anti-system hordes.

The success of the idea of dividing the protest into columns became apparent in Colon. The part of the march I was on stopped and many took the chance for a welcome chance to sit down on a very hot Saturday afternoon. I wandered across the square to the bottom of the Castellana to see the Northern Madrid column of the 19J just about to arrive. The atmosphere as this column united with the Malasaña-Chueca-Chamberí section was tremendous, and what was by now a march of many thousands set off down Recoletos and the Paseo del Prado.

Arriving in Neptuno there were already people present, although the columns from the south of the city had yet to arrive. Unlike the set-piece protests beloved of the PP and their front organisations, this was a march that started in one place and ended in another; one of the columns from the south covered around 13 kilometres. Many of those in Neptuno took refuge from the sun underneath the huge trees that the combined forces of Aguirre and Gallardón have not yet succeeded in chopping down.

Where there was a serious police presence was in front of the Congreso, Spain's parliament. The access was blocked but in any case a huge banner reading "Respeto" had been strung across this point and a sort of no-mans land had been defined between demonstrators and police. The hopes of Intereconomía and other ultra media groups were dashed as the atmosphere in the demonstration continued to be festive. There was even an orchestra playing. The columns from the south arrived to a fine welcome from those who were already there, and it was clear from the numbers attending that the movement had not lost any of its momentum from that march on the 15th May that finally nailed the idea that Spaniards were not interested in protesting about their situation. Other cities around Spain also saw large protests.

The 15-M movement isn't stopping for the summer, there is still a lot of activity going on in Madrid's barrios and marches of "indignados" have set off from different points around the country, converging on Madrid on the 23rd July. The campaign against evictions for mortgage arrears has forced the issue of home repossessions onto the national political agenda, and the Madrid police are no longer finding it so easy to stop people in some Metro stations based on the colour of their skin. Meanwhile a difficult debate is taking place in Madrid over the way to coordinate the initiatives taking shape in the barrios without compromising the democratic principles of the movement as the focal point of Sol has moved more into the background. The movement mutates and adapts in unpredictable ways, a reflection of that horizontal structure.

Breaking Camp In The Puerta Del Sol

2011-06-21T17:06:00.000+02:00

Arriving far later than originally intended, a photographic summary of the dismantling of the protest camp in Madrid's Puerta del Sol. The decision to leave the camp on Sunday 12th June was taken after a long assembly the previous week. Long because every attempt was made to accommodate the opinion of the minority who were against leaving the square. Eventually a consensus was reached which consisted of those who wanted to remain having to make proposals acceptable to all if they wanted to stay in the name of the 15-M movement. That didn't happen, and on a hot Sunday morning the work began to clear the camp.

Huge amounts of material were removed from what had become quite solid structures during the lifetime of the camp, as well as the hard task of removing traces of posters and stickers from the Metro entrances and other structures in the square. The people from the camp took the task of clearing up very seriously and the municipal cleaning services provided the containers and lorries to move the debris away.

Not everything was removed from Sol, and there was even a bit of new construction. The movement had decided to leave an information booth about the campaign in the square, and here it is in construction.

Alongside the information booth there were a series of other reminders of what had been here since the middle of May.

The vegetable garden was still there in Sol when I passed by on Sunday following the big demonstration in Madrid. Doing surprisingly well considering the hostile environment in which it has to survive.

After the dismantling of the camp there was still time for an assembly to mark the occasion and to make clear that the campaign that took off on the 15th May is far from over.

This is the information booth in the square once it was up and running.

Some of those who opposed leaving the camp claimed that the extension of the campaign to the barrios of Madrid wasn't yet ready. In reality, it had been running well already for a couple of weeks and the proof of that was there to see in the successful protest held on June 20th, as well as in the huge range of activities that are now being organised at local level around the city.

Whose Square Is It Anyway?

2011-06-07T18:29:00.000+02:00

To stay or not? This is the issue which is dominating much of the discussion about the protest camp in Madrid's Puerta del Sol. After 3 weeks the camp looks a much more solid and permanent construction after successive changes, but its role as as a focal point for what has become known in the press as the 15M movement has undoubtedly declined. It seems clear that there are those within the camp who feel that the time has come to move on to other tactics, yet there are also those who are determined to keep it going.

What makes the decision harder to take is the participatory democracy that has also been one of the factors making the camp so successful. This idea that anyone can participate in any assembly, and that consensus rather than a simple majority is needed to take a decision. This system has been criticised for failing to produce the set of concrete proposals that so many critics of the movement demand, presumably as a homage to their own lack of ideas. But it has undoubtedly helped to make more cohesive a movement that, despite media stereotyping, is simply not composed of people who all think the same way about everything.

The problem now is that the determination of a few can mean that no decision on the future of the camp can be made, and there are claims that some of those who have joined the protest have done so more for lifestyle reasons than any interest in participating in the movement itself. Friendly voices have pinpointed this issue, which may well just lead to those who are tired and have had enough packing their tents and walking away. This, I think, is a pity. A decision, perhaps also involving the camps in other cities, to move on voluntarily and with the possibility of mobilising again many of those who initially supported the camp seems a much better way to go than just hanging on grimly until the police are sent in.

That latter option is certainly what Madrid's city and regional administrations would love to see. The calls got louder on the very day of the hugely violent, and terribly misjudged, attempt by the Catalan government to evict the camp in Barcelona. The desire of Esperanza Aguirre's administration to see similar treatment meted out in Madrid was evident as wild accusations were launched about "chabolismo" in the Puerta del Sol. A strong campaign has also been launched by those representing businesses in the area with equally exaggerated claims about the effect of the camp on the nearby shops combined with nonsense about the danger to hygiene represented by a supposedly filthy camp.

In reality it is probably these same organisations that have done the most damage to the local shops in Sol by making untrue claims. The camp already cooperated with shopowners a couple of weeks ago by clearing the posters and banners from the shops and the simple fact is there are no obstacles of any kind preventing people from shopping in the zone or circulating around the square. The camp has always been clean, which given the state of some of the streets in the centre since the ayuntamiento got difficult about paying for rubbish collection is something of a contrast. It's cleaner than my street. For some the Puerta del Sol will always be much better as a haven for pickpockets than as a place where citizens can freely express their discontent.

It's funny, the city authorities constantly hire out the squares of Madrid for all sorts of mercadillos and events sponsored by any company prepared to pay to do a bit of advertising. All of this fine to the city's rulers, despite the way in which such events obstruct the use of this space by ordinary citizens. Meanwhile the sacred "right to shop" is added near to the top of the post-modern charter of human rights, just behind the right to travel anywhere you want on a puente.

Those responsible for the assault on the camp in Barcelona have continued to lie freely about the events on that day, despite the vast amount of audiovisual evidence available. False claims of violence against the police have been launched, just as there were lies on the day itself about the use of extreme tactics such as rubber bullets. Lies are told about an image that has become famous of a man in a wheelchair caught in the midst of a police charge, with laughable claims made that the police were just trying to help him. The fact that the police broke their own regulations by not displaying any visible identification (a common practice by those claiming to uphold the law) is almost an incidental detail compared to everything else that happened. A criminal case has been presented against those responsible, test the democratic health of the society by seeing how far it gets.

Regardless of what happens in Sol or other acampadas the campaign has already spread beyond this tactic. Successful assemblies have been held in many barrios of Madrid, the intention being to build local campaign bases with initiatives that combine neighbourhood activities together with support for national action. Another national protest has been organised for the 19th June, and it promises to be a significantly bigger one than 15th May. There will also be protests in several places where newly elected city administrations take power this week. Many people outside of the traditional parties or structures are now involved around Spain in activities calling for change and the momentum is still there. It's not over yet.

Españistan

2011-05-28T17:00:00.001+02:00

I'm off walking in Madeira for a few days, but I wanted to post this fantastic video. Entertaining but as good an explanation of the crisis in Spain as you are likely to find anywhere.

Police Violence The Response To Peaceful Protests In Barcelona

2011-05-27T12:33:00.000+02:00

I was planning to post what would have been an almost routine update on the protest camp in Madrid's Puerta del Sol, but events have intervened. In Barcelona the authorities have launched an operation this morning to clear the camp in the city's Plaça de Catalunya. The pretext for the operation has been cleanliness and hygiene, but what we have seen over the last couple of hours live on Spanish TV have been been scenes of extraordinary and unprovoked police violence against peaceful demonstrators. This is a taste of what has happened this morning.

Antena 3 has interrupted it's normally bland and awful morning programming to cover more than any other channel the police charges. We've seen people being repeatedly struck with batons, being kicked by police whilst lying on the ground and many other incidents of violence from the police. The only hygiene that is missing here is democratic, in any truly free society many of the police in action this morning would be facing prison for their actions. Their bosses too. Following an interview with the police chief of Barcelona where he attempted to deny shocking scenes that viewers were seeing with their own eyes, the police tried to move journalists away from the scene. There have even been reports of volleys of shots being fired in the air. All this just so that lorries could carry away the contents of the camp, including the personal belongings of those who were there.

We now wait to see the response to this operation, it should backfire against the authorities. A camp in Lleida was also cleared this morning, although it seems to have happened without the appalling violence of Barcelona. Today at 19:00 protests have already been called in all the squares to protest this morning's events and the Plaça de Catalunya is now surrounded by demonstrators. There was a reasonable chance that the camps in many Spanish cities would have voluntarily brought their protest to a peaceful conclusion in the next few days, with the campaign adopting new tactics. The brutal crackdown this morning could now change that, just as the police eviction last week in Madrid brought more people out onto the streets.

In Madrid over the last couple of days I've noticed an increasing police presence in the Puerta del Sol. Until a few days ago there was just a row of police vans in front of Casa Espe, the headquarters of the regional government. The truth was that these police had nothing to do, no role to play. The camp in Madrid has been extremely peaceful and self-policing. Two days ago I noticed that there were now police stationed on every corner of the streets leading into the Puerta del Sol. Last night there were police vans in these positions too. It's as if they are slowly taking a tighter grip on the square. The shameful brutality of Barcelona's police this morning has now changed the outcome. The police don't create problems, they solve them was what interior minister Rubalcaba told us the other day. Doesn't look that way to me.

Chacón Steps Back From The Brink

2011-05-26T15:36:00.000+02:00

As a follow up to yesterday's post on the PSOE's leadership vacancy, the defence minister Carme Chacón has just announced today that she won't be contesting the job; at least not this time. She didn't look at all comfortable in the press conference, and at points even seemed to be close to tears. After detailing her project and saying that she took the decision months ago to be a candidate, Chacón has claimed that she changed her mind in the interests of party unity in the wake of Sunday's disastrous election results.

She would say that wouldn't she? It's widely assumed that Chacón has been under very heavy pressure not to get in the way of Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, who has still not officially even stated his interest in the job. It was reported this morning that Chacón's car had been stolen, but I'm resisting the temptation to suggest that this was a warning of what could happen if she stood as a candidate. It's still possible that there could be a primary election instead of a coronation, but it will be a brave candidate who takes the step forward. Nor is it so easy, you need a minimum level of support to be able to stand.

The whole process is beginning to look like an example of old politics winning the day. Can Rubalcaba really present a fresh vision of the country to those who have been protesting over the last week or to those PSOE voters who have opted for abstention? It was the police under his control that evicted the first campers in the Puerta del Sol. He's a throwback to the PSOE of Felipe Gonzalez, and whilst nobody doubts that he is an effective politician there's no sign of what sort of vision he can offer a country that needs change.

Chacón's decision is almost impeccable politically, when viewed from her own interests. She can now let Rubalcaba or whoever else gets chosen take the brunt of the expected electoral defeat, and then stand as a candidate for the future in the next contest. The only risk being that by this time there may be more candidates with the same idea. There is intense speculation that the government may not see out its full term and that we could get a general election in the autumn. Despite the calls from some for early elections it can't realistically be before then, Spaniards don't go to the polls in their swimming costumes.

Did You Say Real Democracy Or Steal Democracy?

2011-05-25T11:25:00.000+02:00

The dust has barely settled following Sunday's crushing defeat for the PSOE in the municipal and regional elections, and the party is in turmoil over how to select their new leader. Nobody has yet declared themselves as a candidate, and this seems to be because of the behind the scenes manoeuvres to either try and avoid a contest or to keep the choice of Zapatero's successor in as few hands as possible.

It's been known for some time that those who favour the interior minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba have been looking for ways to force their candidate into pole position. What they fear most of all is a primary election process which could potentially see Rubalcaba lose out to another candidate; the most likely contender being the defence minister Carme Chacón. The argument they use is that this process would create too much uncertainty.

So we've had the idea floated of a "dream ticket" where of course Rubalcaba would be number one with Chacón as his deputy, presumably in return for a promise that the older Rubalcaba would stand aside in the event of an election defeat. Some have argued that there could still be a process of primary elections, but with only one candidate! Even this seems to be too much for some powerful figures in the party who have been pressing for the primaries to be avoided and for a decision on the succession to be taken more quickly by the party's executive or by a special congress. The latter idea was floated yesterday by the Basque regional president Patxi Lopez.

It looks as if those who are trying to prevent primaries may have jumped the gun, Zapatero has stated today that there will be a primary election process involving the party's members. In such a situation the question arises of whether there might be other candidates. Zapatero himself stood as a virtual unknown when he was elected via the primaries. Perhaps Lopez could be one of those candidates too, a close reading of the Basque election results suggests he may well be out of work in a couple of years time - but he is not a member of parliament and cannot become one whilst he holds his current job.

There may be some legitimate fears about a long drawn out contest sapping even further the PSOE's fragile electoral base. A Rubalcaba-Chacón contest is unlikely to be very inspiring, the absence of ideological content will reduce it to a choice between experience (Rubalcaba) or the novelty for Spain of a potential female (and Catalan!) prime minister (Chacón). It's still a far better way to choose your leader than that used by the Partido Popular where the almost life president talks to the honorary life president and then names the candidate.

The PP is pressing hard for the general election to be brought forward following their victory, although they won't present a motion of censure against the government unless they know they will win it. Zapatero clearly wants to serve his full term and give some time for his successor to prepare for the elections. The key to these plans doesn't lie within the PSOE itself, it is the Basque nationalists of the PNV who will decide whether to continue honouring the pact that saw the government through to this point.

El Lunes Al Sol

2011-05-24T11:49:00.000+02:00

When I saw the newly planted vegetable garden in the Puerta del Sol on Sunday evening it occurred to me that this is not the sort of thing you do if you're planning on going anywhere.

Although many may have assumed that the protest acampada in Sol was just there for election week the reality is different. The camp is still very much active even if the big crowds seen at the weekend have now diminished. Not only is it still there but it continues to evolve and expand. Every day the camp seems to change shape as new activity commissions are set up, or as new campaigners arrive to add their voice to the protest. The structures become more solid and secure as some of the improvised constructions are improved. The camp is kept clean and continues to work amazingly well. Those who believe nothing can ever be achieved unless you have a set of bosses sitting on top of a hierarchy would hate what is happening in Sol.

Equally the range of activities and debates has broadened enormously, a white board displays details of all the activities planned for the day. Yesterday I popped down for one of the general assemblies at the camp. It was hot, very hot, but again the spirit of collaboration that exists in the camp means that water sprays, drinking water, umbrellas, hats and sun cream are all passed around for those who want them. Madrid is a city that to say the least can often feel a bit "in your face", the collaborative atmosphere at the camp is a welcome antidote to that.

The assemblies are there to discuss general organisation of the camp, future strategy, proposals from the different commissions and what to do if the police are sent in to clear the camp. Contrary to what some seem to think, anyone can take part in these meetings. What's more, the aim is consensus. Proposals that meet strong objections are not put to a majority vote but are instead returned to one of the commissions for further work. Somebody stood up at yesterday's meeting to tell us all that he had voted PP and what he most disliked about the camp was the word "consensus". No surprises there, but he was allowed to say his piece and any attempts to shout down speakers down meet general disapproval.

Looking at the reduced numbers in yesterday's assembly, I couldn't stop myself from thinking about how much longer the camp can last. The lack of any noticeable impact on the elections may have dampened the enthusiasm of many. However, I was down again in Sol last night and there were plenty of people around. The place was buzzing with activity. Leaving aside the question of possible police intervention, the question of when to move on from the camp is going to be a tough one. But the next stage of the campaign in Madrid is already taking shape, assemblies are being organised in different barrios of the city for this weekend; the aim is for the campaign to develop local roots.

Anyway, it's time for a short video dedicated to those who criticise the protesters but who offer no proposals of their own or any sort of vision of the future except that of blindly following the pain caucus.

It's ironic that the text in the video comes from an advertisement devised by Apple. I wonder what that company thinks about the look of what is due to become Madrid's new Apple Store?

I leave the last word to Mafalda:

2011 Regional And Municipal Election Results In Spain

2011-05-23T11:07:00.004+02:00

I looked for the El País elections results widget yesterday and couldn't find it. Here it is, along with an ominous blue look to that electoral map. I imagine in PSOE headquarters they have trouble even looking at it.

Could it have been much worse than this for Spain's ruling party? The story the opinion polls have been telling has been confirmed, and more distressingly for the PSOE it seems the announcement that Zapatero will not stand again has made little impact on the result. It's been a traumatic night for them. In only one regional election did the PSOE emerge as the party with most votes, and that by a handful in Asturias where they will struggle to govern. The only region where they look likely to remain in power (of those that voted yesterday) is Extremadura, but even here the Partido Popular (PP) got more votes and the PSOE will have to reach an agreement with Izquierda Unida to govern.

The yardstick for success or failure for both of the big national parties was Castilla-La Mancha. If the PSOE had retained power here it would have been seen as a failure for PP leader Mariano Rajoy, especially as the PP candidate was the general secretary of the party, Maria Dolores de Cospedal. In the event the PP took control by a single seat but with a voting advantage of several points. This region tells the story of the election. The outgoing president, José María Barreda, got significantly better approval ratings in the polls than his opponent, but the PP have fought these elections on national issues and these have clearly prevailed over local conditions in most areas. Barreda was one of the regional barons in the PSOE who had pushed hardest for Zapatero to make his announcement before election day; it wasn't enough.

In Madrid both regional president Esperanza Aguirre and mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón have won comfortable victories, but it's worth noting that the PP in the capital has got a lower percentage of the vote at a time when the party is achieving spectacular results elsewhere. There is now a fourth force in the regional assembly, Union Progreso y Democracia (UPyD) have achieved their best result in the city and will be represented. We will now get to see where they stand on issues like the creeping privatisation of public services or Aguirre's increasing application of segregationist policies in education. They can't have it both ways on everything, a position they've managed to maintain whilst not having elected representatives.

The odd thing in Madrid is that probably neither of the winning candidates wants to do the job they have stood for. The compulsive attention seeker Aguirre is going to be frustrated at being confined to regional affairs if the PP win power nationally in 2012. Gallardón will almost certainly leave his post to serve in a Rajoy government. We lucky Madrileños will be left with Ana Botella as mayor! Again, the local and national factors were confused in the Madrid campaign. Take a look at Aguirre's huge campaign poster from the Plaza de España if you can take it (young children and the sensitive should probably look away at this point). It calls for "change"; this from a party that has governed Madrid continuously for 16 years! Some change.

There are some very interesting results from other regions. In Cataluña the conservative nationalists of Convergència i Unió are now firmly in the driving seat and even seem to have displaced the PSOE's Catalan wing from the town hall in Barcelona. They now combine control of the regional government with that of the Catalan capital. A significant change, coupled with another terrible result for nationalist rivals Esquerra Republicana who just a few years ago seemed to be on the point of challenging CiU for the nationalist vote. It's worth noting, as a warning for the future, that the PP ran a nasty and repulsively racist campaign in Cataluña. No other description fits.

Elsewhere, there was another resounding victory in Valencia for a PP list packed with candidates facing corruption charges, including of course the regional president Francisco Camps. No surprise there for those of us who take it for granted now that corruption doesn't erode the PP vote, but in fact something has changed. Compared with 2007 the PP has lost support in percentage terms in Valencia even as the PSOE vote has slumped. Not a huge change but still happening at a moment when their support elsewhere is hitting levels not seen in years. Valencia more than anywhere else exemplifies the adoption of Berlusconi type politics in Spain, because of the insistence from the corrupt that the ballot box will absolve them.

In the Basque Country there is another fascinating situation. The political force which has the largest municipal representation in the region after the elections is the coalition Bildu, which the government and the PP tried to illegalise for alleged links with ETA. The right-wing nationalists of the PNV are the party with the most votes but Bildu has taken around 25%. It's an ominous result for the regional PSOE led government which relies on PP support to govern, and a reminder that these parties only achieved power in the first place in the Basque Country because previous illegalisations disenfranchised part of the nationalist vote. Will a PP led national government attempt again to remove the second largest Basque political formation?

Then there is Asturias. The PSOE finished the night just a few tens of votes ahead of the new party led by the former PP secretary general Francisco Álvarez Cascos. Anyone who imagines that this party is just a personal vehicle for Cascos would be absolutely right, the initials of the formation are FAC. It's a depressing result, because FAC stands for the most obsolete, cacique style of politics that you can imagine represented by a political dinosaur. But Cascos is now there as the kingmaker to decide whether PSOE or PP will govern alongside his party.

Although the night looks like a huge victory for the PP, it's worth noting that the percentages of vote obtained would not give them a majority in a general election. The difference on the night is caused by a slump in support for the PSOE. Some of those votes have gone to the PP, some to UPyD and some to Izquierda Unida who have experienced a small increase in support. But many of these votes have disappeared into abstention and the PSOE is failing to mobilise much of their core vote. This situation goes back a year, to the point when Zapatero did his great turnaround on the economy. With the PP pressing for early national elections the PSOE currently doesn't have a candidate. The current favourite, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, doesn't emerge well from these elections. Carme Chacón, at the moment his only known rival, has kept a lower profile but could be damaged by the defeat in her Catalan base. We will know very soon who intends to stand as Zapatero's replacement, that campaign was on hold until today.

Some observers have also tried to present the election as a failure for the protestors camped in Madrid's Puerta del Sol and many other cities around Spain. With so many voters sticking to the traditional and in many ways discredited parties it's likely to be disappointing for some. At the same time it was never very likely that a campaign that was virtually unknown just over a week ago was going to have a significant effect on the electoral outcome. It seems like a good moment to correct some misconceptions too. Democracia Real Ya, and the other protest platforms, are not an electoral movement. Just because the Junta Electoral decided last week they were doesn't affect that reality, and the campaign continues.

This campaign may well have more to deal with soon, there is an expectation that many regional governments have been holding back on making severe cutbacks until after election day. Likewise, I listened to a commentator last night on Spanish TV attributing high abstention to the campaign. This is nonsense, the protesters have continually called for people to go and vote. On the other hand, there has been an unusually large number of blank votes cast and this could be partly due to the protests, people who want someone to vote for but don't find a party that represents them.

Plaza Solución....Messages From The #Spanishrevolution

2011-05-21T19:31:00.001+02:00

All the photos shown here have been taken in the camp in Madrid's Puerta del Sol or in the surrounding area. Próxima parada:

The Day Of Reflection

2011-05-21T13:36:00.002+02:00

Arriving with some friends at the Puerta del Sol just a few minutes before midnight, we made it just in time for the "grito mudo" moment of silence that marked the beginning of the day of reflection before voting day. Although we didn't get into the square, at least not for a while. The Puerta del Sol last night was completely packed, and until some people started to leave we couldn't get closer than 60 or 70 metres from the entrance to the square. Once we did get inside it wasn't as if we could go anywhere. Not that this is a complaint, every night in the square has seemed to bring bigger crowds, following each successive attempt to ban the protest.

The significance of the grito mudo was of course the fact that the assembly in Sol was technically illegal once the day of reflection had begun. Supposedly on this day there should be no acts of electoral campaigning and as I blogged yesterday the Junta Electoral has decided that the protests fall into that category. An interpretation of the law which is hugely controversial, and yet another example of the all too frequent practice here of stretching the law to achieve a largely political objective. Reform of the judiciary is one of the topics that quickly comes up in some of the debates taking place in Sol.

In any case, there was thankfully a very muted visible police presence in Sol, and the orders of the national government are that the police should not intervene unless there is evidence of serious offences being committed. The Sol protest has remained absolutely peaceful and disciplined. This has infuriated the right-wing press who clearly think a bit of old style riot cop discipline is what is needed. People need to be beaten into being obedient democrats. Since we're on the subject of the right-wing media, I'd love to know why the front pages of ABC and La Razón today are not considered to be electoral propaganda? Fool that I am, in my naive belief that what applies to the ordinary citizen can be expected to apply to powerful media groups.

This is not the first time that there have been protests in Spain on a day of reflection, there are some echoes of the spontaneous demonstration on the 13th March 2004 as it became clear that Aznar's government were attempting to maintain the fiction of ETA being responsible for the Madrid bombings until after people had voted. I'm not sure how much of that protest ever got shown on Spanish TV, I watched it live on CNN and it was a dramatic, tense afternoon. There are differences now, Madrid in those days of 2004 was in shock after what had happened. The similarity is there in the sense that the protests around Spain reflect a huge sense of disillusionment with those who govern them.

The "acampada" in the Puerta del Sol continues today and it's likely that there will be another huge turnout tonight. Tomorrow we'll see what happens, it's not clear whether those camping in the square will decide to prolong the protest after voting day or change to other campaigning tactics. Nor is it clear whether the national government will attempt to break up the protest tomorrow. The impact of the the week's events has gone beyond anyone's expectations a week ago and the traditional end of campaign rallies by the political parties last night ended up being something of a sideshow. As a final note, here's something else to be indignant about. I read this morning that the parties will get a 9% increase in their state funding this time around for the votes they get and their elected councillors. How about that for a bit of belt tightening in the midst of the crisis? I'm off to Sol to do some reflecting.

Nobody Expected The Spanish Revolution

2011-05-20T17:50:00.003+02:00

I left the demonstration organised on Sunday afternoon by Democracia Real Ya shortly after it arrived in the Puerta del Sol. I read later that night that some of the demonstrators had decided to camp in the square but I didn't think it would necessarily grow into anything bigger. The next day I had to go to London for a short trip, but what happened subsequently in Madrid is simply amazing.

The police moved in on the protesters in the early hours of Tuesday morning, when there were fewer people in the square, on orders from the national government's representative in Madrid. This police action provoked a response that few expected and on Tuesday night the camp was restored via the presence of thousands of demonstrators. A massive police presence did little to deter people. At this point the Spanish authorities started to realise that they had a problem, and the media which had hardly covered Sunday's march at all started to take notice of what they call "los indignados".

The authorities, having seen their first attempt at clearing the square backfire, opted for a different method. The provincial Junta Electoral, which is supposed to be concerned with ensuring the parties conduct their electoral campaign according to the rules, extended its remit to prohibit any demonstrations by those who were camped in Sol and their supporters. The justification offered by the Junta is almost comical. They believed that the calls made by protestors for people to vote responsibly were an unacceptable interference with the election campaign. When you look at who runs Madrid you can see why they did it.

Once again the tactic backfired badly, Wednesday night saw massive defiance of the ban despite the square having been cordoned off by police who were checking identification of those who tried to gain access to it. By this point the municipal electoral campaign was almost becoming an irrelevant sideshow, as similar protests began in other parts of the country. It was clear that both local and national governments wanted the Puerta del Sol to be cleared, but who was going to issue the order to clear an ever larger protest with massive baton charges?

The main national paries, PSOE and PP, have both been caught completely off guard by the movement and struggled to formulate any kind of response. Although the PP likes to pretend that the protests cause a bigger problem for the government, the reaction of the right-wing media shows their alarm at the prospect of a movement which might threaten some of their privileges. A defamatory campaign against the protestors has been launched by right-wing newspapers and the digital TV channels like Intereconomia. Not to forget Telemadrid. They're anti-system anarchists, or communists, or ETA sympathisers, or whatever. It didn't take long for the loopy conspiracy theorists get to work and to see the hidden hand of interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba behind it all.

Esperanza Aguirre, always available when we need someone to play the victim, claimed that it was unfair that the protesters were camped outside the headquarters of the regional government when the government is to blame for everything. She just doesn't get it, the protestors in the Puerta del Sol are there because it's where the demonstration ended on Sunday and it's the heart of the capital. Aguirre is but one of many targets of the demonstrators, but one thing is for sure; these protesters are people who have woken up to the future that awaits them and the cynical myth peddled by the PP that Spain just needs a change of government for things to get better won't work here. The grotesque sight the other night of PP leader Mariano Rajoy singing the praises of Valencia's Francisco Camps reinforced the feelings of many about the need for change.

Another massive crowd was in the Puerta del Sol last night and the movement continues to spread. Yesterday the national Junta Electoral also voted to outlaw any demonstration called for Saturday in the Puerta del Sol. It's perhaps worth pointing out that the Junta Electoral includes some of those judges whose determination to finish the career of Baltasar Garzón leads them to ignore any law or legal principle which might stand in the way of their objective. Events are showing just how fragile freedom can really be when you have to ask the powerful for permission to protest against them. Those in the square are not leaving, and they argue that they haven't actually called any demonstrations for Saturday, which is the day of reflection before voting day on Sunday. Of course, should any citizen wish to take a stroll in the Puerta del Sol then that is their right.

That's exactly what I did today and I came away hugely impressed with the atmosphere, organisation and discipline of the camp in the Puerta del Sol. Everywhere you walk there are little circles of people discussing what's going on, you attach yourself to one and listen or join in. Many people who would appear to be opposed to what is going on have come down to take a look for themselves. It's quite rare to see Spaniards from all sides of the political spectrum talking about the state of their country in this way. I've often found here that people either go quiet when they realise you don't agree with them, or resort to shouting to help you to understand their point. Generally, thats not the case in #acampadasol. You get more genuine political debate from the people talking in the square in 10 minutes than you get from 3 weeks of superficial, tightly controlled electoral campaign.

Not only is there no hidden hand behind this protest, there is no organisation controlling it either. This is today's asamblea, proposals for action and concerning the organisation of the camp are read to all those attending. If you like it you wave your hands in the air, if you don't there are shouts or whistles. Mostly people seemed to like it.

There's that bear again. Some people had a better view than I could get at the back of the crowd, this is not a good day to arrange to meet your friends beside the statue in Sol!

Then there is the organisation, those in the camp have divided themselves into different commissions which take care of an issue. This could be food, communication, rubbish collection, or anything else which needs to be sorted out. From what I could see it seems to work and well. There are also rules, simple but important ones. Peaceful protest is vital, no excuses can be given to those who would love to send in the riot police with their batons. Equally, the atmosphere might be festive at times, but that doesn't mean it's just a big party. No alcohol, no botellón in the square. There is a serious purpose here.

What do they want? That's the question that many ask about a movement with no clear leadership or any kind of official program. Well don't moan about that, just go down there and write down your proposals. Democracy can be quite contagious, once you try it.

Where this movement will go after the elections is a question many are wondering about, but the events of this week have given it a boost which has to leave some trace. We are, after all, only 10 months away from next year's general election. The idea that nobody should bother protesting because you can't change anything is being questioned, as are all the assumptions about the passivity of Spaniards in response to the crisis. Barring attempts at further repression on the eve of voting day it looks like the camp will be there until Sunday. Take a look, if you're around - it's well worth it.

15m....Democracia Real Ya In Madrid

2011-05-17T11:18:00.002+02:00

If anyone asked what the demonstrators in Madrid were protesting about on Sunday afternoon, they might have got any number of answers. The lack of decent job opportunities, the complacency of Spain's main political parties, the Ley Sinde, the cutbacks in services, a life mortgaged up the eyeballs (if you can get on the property ladder in the first place). 15-20000 people took to the streets in a good natured but noisy protest that was organised entirely outside of the political party or trade union structures. Other protests were called at the same time in 50 cities around Spain. That small initiative from Juventud Sin Futuro a few weeks ago has grown.

Democracia Real Ya is a new platform that has really used the internet and social networks to spread the message and to mobilise, and has managed to bring people together around a feeling of discontent which is finding no answers from the country's political class. It will make the parties of the left feel less comfortable, conservative Spain is not going to take to the streets over these issues. But if those parties are failing to reach so many people or address their concerns then that is their problem to solve. The idea that the Spanish will passively accept whatever the crisis throws at them is now starting to provoke a response.

No hay pan para tanto chorizo...

#sinpreguntasnocobertura

2011-05-11T20:23:00.000+02:00

The way in which the media covers Spanish politics has received a lot of attention recently. Accusations of bias, hard to believe I know, have been freely made and with the country in an election campaign there is a greater focus on the coverage given to each political party. An interview recently on the state channel RTVE 1 with the secretary general of the Partido Popular, Maria Dolores de Cospedal, sparked a big row. De Cospedal backed claims made by other members of her party that the channel's news coverage is biased against the PP. The journalist conducting the panel interview/discussion, Ana Pastor, subsequently came to the defence of her employers.

What made the event unusual and more newsworthy was that Pastor spoke back against the politician. Interviews with Spanish politicians tend to be notoriously soft, and it's extremely rare to see an interviewee being given a hard time. Pastor had already gained some kudos a few months ago for a robust interview she did with the Iranian president, and I remember thinking at the time that it was just a pity that journalists here couldn't do the same with their own politicians. In the case of the De Cospedal interview the PP was naturally outraged that one of their leaders couldn't launch accusations on TV without being being answered. Of course they are more used to the manipulative and servile approach adopted by the regional channels they control, such as Telemadrid or Canal 9 in Valencia.

RTVE may not yet be the model of objective journalistic coverage but there is no doubt that it has been significantly less partial under Zapatero than it was under his predecessor. I still remember the Aznar years and those news bulletins that would almost always begin with the depressing words "el presidente del gobierno ha dicho". The post of head of RTVE was more or less interchangeable with that of being Aznar's press representative, and it was this kind of direct political control that has become the model for the dreadful pseudo news coverage that has become the norm in Madrid and Valencia. Zapatero cannot be accused of operating the same kind of policy and the top job in the corporation was agreed with the PP. The latter party just adopts a standard policy of accusing all the media who do not directly favour them of being biased.

Thankfully, there have also been hopeful signs of resistance from sections of the media to kid glove treatment of politicians. The increasingly common habit of press conferences being called where no questions are permitted from journalists has finally produced a backlash. Many individual journalists and some associations have signed a petition under the name of #sinpreguntasnocobertura where they call upon all members of the profession not to cover political events when journalists are not allowed to ask questions. It's a welcome step against the increasing management of political coverage by the parties, who already get their canned segments of speeches carried automatically by news bulletins.

Politicians on all sides can act in this way, PP leader Mariano Rajoy seems to give at most a couple of press conferences a year but there are also government ministers who adopt similar tactics with their public declarations. For the campaign to be truly effective it also needs the politically docile sections of the press to back it too. This presents difficulties for a certain brand of journalist. A press interview a few days ago with Valencian president Francisco Camps included a gem from the interviewer about how he didn't want to press Camps too hard on the Gürtel corruption case because he was not a Navy Seal! The battle has to be fought within the profession itself as well as against those who seek to manipulate media coverage in their own interests.

It Costs An Arm And A Leg To Fly To Castellón

2011-05-10T19:37:00.001+02:00

Until quite recently the South of Watford award for Spain's most useless airport might easily have gone to Ciudad Real's almost deserted white elephant. I now realise that CR airport is a bustling transport hub compared to some others; given that Vueling have been paid to operate a whopping 6 flights a week into the middle of nowhere. Or occasionally to Barcelona if Ciudad Real's solitary air traffic controller goes home.

Rivals for the award are becoming easier to find. It appears that Huesca only got flights in the ski season, and even these seem to have stopped. And then there is Castellón. Under the wise guidance of the "ciudadano ejemplar" Carlos Fabra (description courtesy of M. Rajoy), Castellón now has a sparkling brand new airport. It was, of course, inaugurated in time for the May elections and Fabra dismissed all nitpicking objections about the complete absence of planes inside the new installation by declaring that it was an airport for the people!

It's not even just a problem of the airport having no planes. It seems that it doesn't even have the necessary permissions that would allow flights to land there. No matter, enjoy the place. There's no imminent risk of nearby residents having their sleep disturbed by the noise of roaring jet engines. But the airport will have a statue to remind visitors of who owns the province. A tribute to the Great Tax Dodger himself is being prepared by the artist Juan Ripollés.

Sadly, yesterday there was a theft in the workshop where the statue is being prepared and the incident has revealed some intriguing details about the nature of this apparently immense work of Populist Unrealism. The thieves reportedly made off with three hands and an arm. Yes, that's right - three hands. You don't seriously expect a man who manages so many bank accounts to make do with just two hands? Not only that, but the combined weight of the booty was 2.5 tons and the thieves needed a lorry to steal it! Stalin himself would have been overwhelmed by the size of the statue being prepared in Fabra's honour. Unlike the Copa del Rey, it seems they don't have a duplicate. Yet.

A Piece Of The Copa Del Rey For Everyone

2011-04-21T12:54:00.000+02:00

Real Madrid's victory over Barcelona in last night's Copa del Rey final has almost been eclipsed by the manner in which Sergio Ramos chose to celebrate the victory; dropping the cup under the wheels of the team bus. It's a fairly safe bet that he doesn't get asked to wash the champagne glasses when he's at home. We assume that the country's top trophy repair experts were awakened in the early hours of this morning.

Madrid won the game, but they didn't do it in a way that puts their style of play on a par with Barça's. A scrappy, bad-tempered first half was the result of Madrid playing to disrupt the natural style of their opponents. All of which is quite legitimate, but the story it tells is that of a team which does not regard itself as the equal of Barcelona. The important thing for Mourinho's team in the last few days has been to shake off the trauma of that 5-0 hammering in the Camp Nou earlier in the season. The second half saw Barça dominating but without managing to find a way past a Madrid team that was by now playing to win the game on a break or on penalties. At least the game was decided in open play. The only goal that hasn't come from the penalty spot in the 210 minutes of play between the two teams over the last few days.

It's strange this year to see so much attention focused on the cup, normally it's regarded by Spain's big two as a minor distraction from the the hunt for more significant trophies. With the league almost certain to be won by Barcelona it could still be the only title that Real Madrid win this season. The second wave of meetings between the two teams comes with the Champions League semi-finals where a defeat for either team will certainly be regarded as a failure. Madrid's cup, or what remains of it, will be viewed as meaningless by their supporters if Barça put them out of the Champions League. Mourinho, who is clearly not happy in Madrid, will need something more to show than the Copa del Rey if he's thinking of walking away bragging of another successful project. Barça fans will be equally upset if Mourinho foils their Champions League hopes for a second consecutive season.

It's more than a bit dreary the way in which the games between the same two teams are dominating the season, it's the principal reason why I'm not interested in blogging much about Spanish football any more. Scotland on the Med is becoming more and more the name of the game here. Almost completely overshadowed by the massive coverage of the ill-named "clásicos" was the news yesterday of the likely buy out of Getafe by investors from Dubai. We are starting to see in Spain a similar model to that which is happening in the UK where wealthy sugar daddies take over a club which they evidently have little interest in other than as a platform for their business or personal interests. The problem is that the current economic model of top flight football means that the vast majority of clubs are doomed to be in permanent financial crisis. The fans may be excited when they get a flashy new owner who pays off some of the debt and maybe buys a star or two. But then when that owner loses interest in his new toy...

Will It Be Gürtel That Brings Garzón Down?

2011-04-19T20:29:00.000+02:00

Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón has been suspended from his position today by Spain's governing judicial body, the Consejo General del Poder Judicial (CGPJ). I know what some of you are thinking, that you've read this somewhere before. Well even though it already happened once in May last year, he's been suspended again today as part of the continuing campaign against him by members of the Spanish Supreme Court.

This time the suspension is related to the Gürtel corruption case. One of the three separate cases against Garzón accuses him of acting illegally by ordering recording of the conversations between the main organisers of the Gürtel ring and their lawyers. Some, but not all, of these recordings have already been ruled illegal by a Madrid court; but the Supreme Court case is aimed at Garzón as the original investigating magistrate dealing with the case. The suspension is supposed to happen once the case reaches the point where a trial can be held.

The accusation in this case is following an already familiar pattern. All attempts by Garzón to call witnesses in his defence that back his legal interpretation have been systematically denied by the Supreme Court's judges. This has happened in the case against him for investigating Francoist crimes, and also in the other case involving payments for his sabbatical in New York which are alleged to have led him to act in favour of the interests of the Banco Santander. So the fact that the judge currently dealing with the Gürtel case, the state prosecutors, and one of the three judges who heard the Madrid case on the recordings, all agree that no crime was committed is not going to be allowed to influence the determination of the Supreme Court to put Garzón in the dock for this case too.

Let's rewind a bit and note that almost a year has passed now since the original decision to suspend Garzón over the Franco case. That frenzy of activity which occurred when Garzón applied for a transfer to the International Criminal Court has long died away following the original suspension and there is still no date set for a trial which was, in principle, ready to happen any day. There is a theory concerning the management by the Supreme Court of the cases against Garzón. It could be called a conspiracy theory, but the way events are shaping up it's worth taking seriously.

The argument is that the Supremo will try to take Garzón down using the Gürtel recordings case. They may have been ready with the Civil War case for almost a year but it places the court in a difficult position. The persecution of Garzón for investigating crimes which are covered by treaties which Spain has signed has attracted significant international attention. Even though it's probably this issue more than anything else which has motivated the "get Garzón" campaign, taking it to trial will leave Spanish justice with a dreadful image problem. Meanwhile the case concerning the Banco Santander is floundering badly, the investigating judge has only managed to keep it alive by turning it into a generic fishing exercise to see if he can find anything at all irregular in Garzón's earnings.

The case concerning Gürtel may offer the judges an easier route to get their man. With a court having already ruled out some of the recordings, they can try Garzón for having breached the principle of confidentiality between the accused and their lawyers without justification. Of course to do this they have to ignore all conflicting opinions and the evidence of involvement against some of the lawyers in laundering the proceeds of the the Gürtel ring. The key part of the theory is this: having obtained one conviction against Garzón, the judge loses his position and the protection this affords. The other cases then get shunted off to a lower court where they can be allowed to wither indefinitely in the department of forgotten prosecutions. Without, of course, ever being withdrawn. No recognition of judicial error will come from the Supreme Court.

It's just a theory at the moment, but the fact that the Gürtel prosecution seems to be the only one moving forward gives it some credence. Another side effect of such a development is that the Partido Popular will of course be delighted by a sentence that they can use to try and discredit a corruption case which continues to threaten prominent figures in the party. One of the great paradoxes of Gürtel has been that so far the only legal consequences have been formal prosecution of the investigating judge and a PSOE politician threatened with a prison sentence for raising a confidential police report in the Valencian parliament which had already been published in the press! The latter has already been acquitted, but the way things are going I wouldn't put much money at the moment on Garzón being so lucky.

Keeping Madrid's Atheists Off The Streets

2011-04-18T20:15:00.000+02:00

A modest proposal by a trio of civic associations to hold an atheist procession in Madrid during Easter week has, perhaps not surprisingly, provoked a hugely over the top reaction. First off the mark was Madrid's ayuntamiento which called for the procession to be banned as a "provocation". Completely different, you understand, from a bunch of intimidating looking Catholics marching around all day dressed up as the Klan. Anyway, Madrid's rulers got their way as the national government's representative in the capital banned the event.

This ban, also not surprisingly, was not enough for some of the small but very vocal Christo-fascist organisations that yearn for the good old days when heretics were dealt with in a more summary fashion. Hazteoir submitted a judicial complaint accusing the atheists of genocide, whilst the christian lawyers association was keen not to be outdone and lodged an accusation of praising terrorism. I'm not inventing any of this and you have to remember at this point that Madrid's rulers called for the ban to be imposed in the name of "tolerance". I'll repeat that because I'm sure someone will think I missed some letters from the beginning of the word. "Tolerance".

Now in a sane judicial system Hazteoir and the christian lawyers would be told to organise their own procession taking them back onto the street and down to the nearest bar to drown their sorrows instead of wasting judicial time and money. However, in Spain there is a never ending stream of legal cases brought by ultra right-wing sects and grouplets because there appears to be an equally limitless supply of conservative judges who far prefer this sort of thing to any far fetched notions of dispensing justice to the average citizen. The judge in this case being the same one that happily keeps alive the hopes of those behind the 11-M conspiracy theories.

Honest Candidates Have An Unfair Advantage

2011-04-14T19:09:00.000+02:00

With the regional and municipal elections looming, the Partido Popular in Valencia has struck an important blow for equality of treatment. They lodged a complaint with the Junta Electoral, responsible for overseeing the electoral process, because several TV channels had publicised the fact that their lists for the May elections are full of people involved in corruption cases, including the long running Gürtel case. The PP claimed that this shouldn't be allowed. It goes without saying that the regional TV channel under their control would never do such a thing, those who rely solely on this channel for their information may even be unaware that their president could soon be on trial.

Today, after what seems to have been some pressure from national PP headquarters, the Valencian party has withdrawn their complaint. The lists for the elections contain, depending on what you read, between 9-11 important PP figures who are either directly accused of offences or who are currently under investigation. The decision to pack the lists with so many suspect characters has been seen as a further snub by the Valencian PP to Mariano Rajoy, who they know to be either unwilling or unable to act over such cases. Given that they regard electoral success as being equivalent to absolution, perhaps the only surprise is the accidental inclusion of some candidates who are not yet charged with anything.

Juventud Sin Futuro

2011-04-13T18:50:00.000+02:00

As a follow up to my post the other week on the lack of protest by young people in Spain over the future that awaits them, here is a post to show that not everyone is passively accepting the situation. Last week saw the first protest in Madrid organised by a platform called Juventud Sin Futuro. The turnout was nothing like that seen in protests such as the one held in Lisbon a few weekes ago, but it could yet turn out to be the start of something bigger.

A Stroll In Palma De Mallorca

2011-04-11T19:50:00.000+02:00

I was in Mallorca for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I went for a wedding so I didn't have that much time to take a look at the island and spent the entire weekend in Palma. If you stand with your back to the motorway that runs parallel to the sea and look towards the cathedral it's possible to avoid seeing any of the newer parts of the city.

With a few hours on my own on the Monday before returning to Madrid I couldn't resist the temptation to go and have a look at the building popularly known as "el palacete de Matas". This is the fine old building in the centre of Palma that was purchased by the former president of the Balearics, Jaume Matas; a man who is currently facing what could be described as certain legal difficulties concerning his period in office. It took a bit of work on internet to direct me towards the Carrer Sant Feliu.

It's claimed that Matas paid around a third of the true value of the building in question, and then refurbished it very lavishly but without apparently having to go to the trouble of paying all the bills. The most notable thing about the building, if I identified it correctly, is that the lower part houses offices of the Sindicatura de Comptes. Who are they? Nothing really, just the government agency that is supposed to ensure that public money is properly managed.

ZP, El Pato Cojo

2011-04-08T18:36:00.000+02:00

We can't really claim the suspense was killing us, the speculation was all about when Zapatero would make his announcement that he wouldn't stand for re-election, not if he would make it. Things had reached the point where it had really become unsustainable to choose any other option after months of speculation and increasing pressure inside his own party for a decision to be made.

Not that there has ever been much sign of Zapatero intending to try for a third term. It has long been rumoured that he would "do an Aznar" and stand down voluntarily after two terms in office. What has happened is that the choice over the timing has not been as voluntary as he would have liked. Powerful regional figures in the PSOE have been expressing their worry that the appalling poll ratings for the national government would lead the party to disaster in the local and regional elections, where candidates with a good local record might hope to defy the trends of the polls.

The problem now for the PSOE is to keep the lid on any leadership struggle until after the May elections, although any open bidding for power in the meantime is likely to be quickly shot down as being disloyal to the party. Zapatero has made it clear that he favours a primary election to choose the new leader, the same route that he took to the top and a stark contrast with the opposition Partido Popular whose current leader was elected by one person; José Maria Aznar. I always think that the inner workings of a party reveal much about its attitude towards democracy in general (and of course in this case political heritage).

For many the overwhelming favourite as successor is the interior minister, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba. He is seen as a safe pair of hands who might just manage to salvage something for the party in next year's general election. Rubalcaba has a very powerful ally in the newspaper El País, in what would be an attempt by that paper's owners to regain some of the influence they have lost over the government. El País seems able to produce a poll showing extraordinary prospects for Rubalcaba at a moments notice and there is little doubt that some senior PSOE figures would like him to be installed without a contested election. It's strange that a politician who was said to be seeking retirement after the last general election should now be on the verge of becoming leader of the party. It's hard to see him as being anything more than a caretaker leader but you never know.

The main expected rival to the Rubalcaba option is defence minister Carme Chacón, who would represent a younger generation of politicians in the party. Chacón has been seen as Zapatero's favourite as successor after becoming the first woman defence minister, and the fact that she is Catalan would be seen as a nod to an important region in electoral terms. Ironically, she could lead a party that she is not officially a member of, as the Catalan PSC is in principle a separate organisation. We can only imagine for the moment the reaction of the right wing press in Spain to the prospect of a Catalan female becoming prime minister. Heart attacks could be provoked just by the thought of it.

The possibility of other candidates shouldn't be ruled out, after all José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was virtually an unknown outside of his home territory when he stood for election as PSOE leader. Another question is whether there will be behind the scenes negotiations for a Rubalcaba-Chacón "dream ticket", presumably put together with the promise that Rubalcaba would stand down in the event of an election defeat. It's a risky game for Chacón to play, sometimes if you don't stand you lose your chance forever as anyone else can come forward in the future. Don't expect much ideology from either of them, Rubalcaba is a machine politician and Chacón will represent a continuation of Zapaterismo.

The PP has already been clamouring for early elections to be called, although it's still notable that they refuse to present a parliamentary motion of censure. In many ways Rubalcaba has been their main target ever since the reshuffle last year gave him a more prominent role in the general business of the government. They have been chipping away at his generally high approval rating. It's not clear whether Zapatero will stand down after the new leader is elected, or whether he will follow Aznar's lead and stay as prime minister but not as candidate, continuing to take the flak for the economy's weakness.

Aguirre Calls For Clean, Fair Fight In May Elections

2011-04-01T08:23:00.002+02:00

Esperanza Aguirre has struck first blow in the campaign for regional and municipal elections in May by calling on all parties to respect a revolutionary new code of conduct for the campaign. "Voters are sick and tired of politicians abusing their position by using public money and resources to subsidise their own party's campaign" said Aguirre this morning. The measures proposed by the Madrid regional president and lideresa of the Partido Popular include the following:

- an end to bogus inaugurations of unfinished hospitals or other public works where all that currently exists is a hole in the ground and a fence around it.

- no use of fraudulent foundations to conceal electoral expenses from public view. Aguirre has suggested that such practices might lead voters to suspect that favours were given in return for hidden donations from companies working for the administration.

- ending the use of institutional advertising budgets as electoral propaganda by using the money to make unsubstantiated boasts about supposed achievements.

- a deal on Telemadrid respecting plurality and ending the practice of using the regional television channel to portray all opposition politicians as Nazis or clowns. Nor can the television services offered in Metro stations be used to bombard passengers with images of regional presidents going about their "work".

Asked if the new code included a ban on employing people on the public payroll to spy on other politicians, Aguirre said that it probably wouldn't because this was just a bit of "harmless fun" and was in any case an internal party matter. Several members of her party are said to have fainted in shock when told of the new proposals. National PP leader Mariano Rajoy wouldn't comment on the new code of conduct, advisers said that he was "thinking about it".

What Does It Take For Spanish Youth To Protest?

2011-03-21T20:15:00.000+01:00

Gary Younge of The Guardian was asking on Twitter today why there is no reaction in Spain against a youth unemployment figure of 43%? The responses he got varied from some typical "mañana" stereotyping to people suggesting that there are particular cultural factors which cushion to some extent the lack of employment opportunities for young people. The support of the family for example. Perhaps the submerged economy also has an influence. The problem I have with what could be called the Southern European cultural explanation is that just 10 days ago there was a huge demonstration in Lisbon by Portuguese youth. Now Portugal is not so dissimilar from Spain in terms of its culture, although it is a significantly less equal society.

I was thinking on similar lines to Younge when I was down in Madrid's Puerta del Sol yesterday watching the arrival of a demonstration called by Izquierda Unida against the government's cutbacks and in favour of a different economic policy. The demonstration was not a failure, there was a healthy enough turnout, but it was a long way from what happened in Lisbon. Despite claims to the contrary by the organisers it came nowhere near to filling the Puerta del Sol as I found myself with plenty of space from the position where I took the photograph of the speakers on the stage. That's a bit depressing, with everything that's happening you would have thought there would be more reaction.

Izquierda Unida doesn't seem to be attracting those voters who are disenchanted with Zapatero's administration, at least on the evidence of the polls. The trade unions, following their pact with Zapatero over the pension cutbacks, have effectively abandoned active protest for the rest of this parliament. There's no shortage of people who will tell you that they would have protested a year, or 6 months ago; but they don't suggest much intention of doing it in the future. I don't know what the answer to the question is, although I suspect that a significant part of Spanish society is simply not ready for the idea that the good times won't automatically return. The Portuguese, who never really had it as good as the Spanish anyway, perhaps have a more realistic appreciation of the kind of society and lack of opportunities that they have to contend with?

Spain's Nuclear Lobby Goes Into Meltdown

2011-03-18T20:05:00.001+01:00

The nuclear catastrophe following the tsunami in Japan has dealt a severe blow to the hopes of those who have been promoting nuclear power as a significant part of Spain's future energy requirements. In the short term the battle to keep open the ageing Garoña plant in Burgos well beyond its projected life span has received a sharp setback with the revelation that the terribly damaged Fukushima reactors in Japan are very similar to the model used for Garoña. The nuclear lobby has been relying on the possible return to power of a sympathetic Partido Popular to inaugurate a new golden age for the technology in Spain. Despite strong media attacks on critics of nuclear energy from their allied journalists, the PP has suddenly gone very quiet on the issue.

The nuclear industry always relies on a double standard as far as safety is concerned. If a nuclear plant survives some sort of potential hazard then that's proof of how safe the industry is. On the other hand, if things get dangerous then anyone who raises questions about the safety of the technology is accused of taking advantage of the situation. It's also an industry with a long history of being extremely economical with the truth. This applies very much to safety issues, where secrecy tends to be the rule over accidents in nuclear plants. Those of us from the UK just need to think of Windscale/Sellafield. But the problems with the truth also apply to the economics of nuclear power.

Comparisons of generating costs between nuclear and other forms of energy often seem to show a startling advantage for the nuclear option. The question is just how much of the real cost is reflected in those favourable figures. A huge proportion of the economic burden for nuclear energy has been borne by the state, both in terms of research into the technology and also in supporting the huge costs of setting up nuclear power stations. Indeed, there is no legal barrier to the construction of new nuclear power stations in Spain, but the industry waits instead for huge injections of public money. Then there are the considerable security costs associated with this kind of energy, not to mention the storage of all that radioactive waste. 50 years or more of nuclear power and the question of how to deal with its dreadfully dangerous waste products is still not resolved.

No other form of energy production has the capacity to create such danger, even without the risks of unpredictable natural events such as earthquakes and tsunamis. Nevertheless, the economic interests behind it will just wait a while before attempting to resume with the soothing message of cheap, clean, energy. When Chernobyl went wrong it was because those goddamn Commies just built cheap junk. Now with Japan it's hard to accuse them of being technically incompetent, so the talk is all of the terrible force of the tsunami when the real problem could be anything capable of disabling the cooling mechanisms on the reactors. It can't happen here until it does.

Does It Matter If Spain's Universities Aren't Amongst The Best?

2011-03-16T20:09:00.000+01:00

Yet another of these ranked listings of world universities has put those from Spain way down the list. This latest ranking, from the Times Higher Education website, has the University of Barcelona as the first Spanish educational institution to appear - in 142nd position. Ahead of Spain, apart from the UK, France and Germany are other Western European countries such as Switzerland, The Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland, Belgium, Finland, and Austria. Still, it could be worse. The Shanghai world university ratings put the first Spanish university (Madrid's Universidad Autonoma) in a dismal 201st on the list. In this ranking Spain doesn't lead the Spanish speaking world, both Mexico and Argentina have higher ranked institutions.

So does it matter? The immediate instinctive response is to say of course it should, a developed European country with 46 million inhabitants could reasonably expect to have at least one well regarded university. I ask the question of whether it matters partly because it doesn't seem to matter much to the Spanish. There are some who bemoan the lack of research investment, or the general lack of facilities in higher education in Spain, but not many. Education hardly seems to feature in the national political debate, and I'm not just talking about university education. A country where 30% of pupils have been abandoning education at the first possible opportunity should have something to worry about, but how much do you hear about this? It's far easier, especially if you live where I do, to find someone who thinks that the only educational problem the country has is to do with the language of instruction used in Cataluña.

I took a look at some of the responses to the Times rankings in both Público and Meneame. It's a bit depressing to read the comments. The worst case response is that which opts for the hyper-sensitive and defensive line that it's all part of the Great Anglo-Saxon Conspiracy. According to this theory of the world, any ranking of any kind which fails to put Spain in a high position is using a secret weighting factor devised by those evil anglo-saxons to specifically exclude the Spanish from the higher positions. Other commenters seem to think it just doesn't matter because Spain continues to produce substantial quantities of well educated graduates and doesn't go in for the elitist selection policies applied in other countries.

I have some sympathy with the last argument, but only some. The problem is that it converts the idea of higher education into that of universities being a variety of graduate factory. The missing factor with this argument, apart from the production line vision of what a university is for, is that universities are not just supposed to be about teaching. I've only ever been to Cambridge University as a tourist and there is much I dislike about the elitism of the UK's top universities. But I have to see the other side of the coin, I've been making a decent living for much of the last 20 years out of a software application which is a fairly direct descendant of work that was done at Cambridge. It's in innovation where Spain's universities really seem to be absent.

Everything has to be put into context, having Silicon Valley doesn't make a single significant difference to the daily lives of many people in the US, and the UK's possession of some very highly rated universities doesn't mean that it has any sort of stable economic model to offer a future for its graduates. But having a policy that encourages and promotes academic innovation has to have some sort of knock on effect for the rest of society. Spain doesn't have an economic model that values education despite the often extraordinary importance which is attached to academic qualifications as opposed to professional experience. That is a fundamental problem for times when economies that can't create employment for the future are going to end up adding more and more unwilling additions to the ranks of the insecure and badly paid.

Mediterranean Walks....Benidorm

2011-03-12T20:36:00.000+01:00

No, this is not a spoof post. Despite the reputation that Benidorm has for other kinds of holidays, it does make an excellent base for doing some walking in the surrounding region. Which is not to say that you can't also stay in a small, quiet village in the hills if that's what you prefer, but both of the routes described here are very easily accessed from the resort.

Objective number one was the peak of Puig Campana, close to the coast but still reaching over 1400 metres at the top. Easily visible from Benidorm itself, where you can clearly see the distinctive cleft in one of the two summits, the route began by taking a bus from the stop near the Hotel Bali to the village of Finestrat. In the village itself you walk up towards the mountain until you reach the fountain called Font del Molí. From this point the path to the summit begins.

The first part of the climb is relatively easy, and helps to stretch your muscles a bit for what comes later. I had done Puig Campana before, several years ago, and remember it being a very tough climb. The most direct route to the top follows the gully between the two summits, but this is full of loose rocks and stones. The trick is to try and find the path, such as it is, that runs up the side of the gully.

Always staying within a range of 40 metres or so from the stones, there are various narrow paths to the right going up which help you to avoid walking on the rocks. It's a steep climb, but then that gives you a good excuse to rest occasionally and enjoy the views.

Faced with the last, narrower part of the gully we decided to do a bit of a shortcut which after a little bit of scrambling worked quite well and connected us with the much gentler path that takes you the rest of the way to the summit. The views from the top of Puig Campana are spectacular. You see the towers of Benidorm very clearly, as well as the line of the coast all the way up to Calpe.

To come down the mountain we opted for descending on the other side, facing inland. We met plenty of people coming up that way and it's also a steep path; although a bit more recognisable than than the gully route we took to ascend. On the other side of Puig Campana it's no longer so evident that you are in a major tourist area. The walk back to Finestrat is considerably longer as you have to do a circuit around the base of the mountain, but it's mostly easy walking as well as being quiet and beautiful.

For day two of the Benidorm weekend we didn't even need to get a bus out of the town. The Serra Gelada is the range of hills (and cliffs) that runs along the coast between Benidorm and Alfás del Pi. To start the route from Benidorm's Rincon de Loix you just need to find the road that takes you up to the cross overlooking the beaches and the town below. Here the road ends and you take a footpath through what is still thankfully a protected area. The weather and visibility were perfect for walking on the day we did this route (in May), this is Puig Campana seen from the Serra Gelada.

Behind us was Benidorm.

This was the way ahead. The route itself is not difficult, but it is not flat either. Several times you have to descend only to climb back up on the other side of the dip. The path always sticks fairly close to the coast, a bit too close in some places if you are a vertigo sufferer. I prefer to look down at the sea from a safe angle rather than go right up to the edge of the cliff and look down.

For a while you have to look inland for signs of development, but eventually the coast of Alfás, Altea and Calpe comes into view. As you get nearer to the end of the track it starts to descend quite sharply. We went down to the beach to have a drink and a rest, but then we returned back to Benidorm via the same route. This makes for quite a long walk, but not a particularly exhausting one; the alternative is just to get a bus back from Alfás del Pi or the train from nearby Altea. As long as the days are not too short the return walk can be taken at a very gentle pace. So who said Benidorm is just a place for beach holidays?

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Who Said There Is No Faith In The Euro?

2011-03-10T19:51:00.001+01:00

The story this week that a convent in Zaragoza had been the victim of the theft of €1.5 million has provoked a certain amount of hilarity but also some intense speculation about how the sisters could have accumulated such a large amount of money. According to reports, the police are as interested in the origin of the money as they are in who might have stolen it. The latter issue is of course very difficult, the suspicion is that it has been an inside job and with so many people wearing almost identical clothing there doesn't seem much point in organising an identity parade.

The stolen money was said to have been stored in a cupboard, and allegedly consisted of a significant number of those elusive €500 notes which we hear so much about. The convent has given a somewhat confusing version about the origins of so much money, we're no longer sure whether it came from "savings", or the income from a talented artist in the community. However, after a couple of days the convent has now reassessed the amount of money stolen to bring it below the €500,000 mark.

The emergence of such a widely publicised story involving money of questionable origin almost coincided with a report from the national foundation of Spain's remaining savings banks about the size of the submerged economy in Spain. Their report put it at a possibly conservative 17% of economic activity in the country, especially taking into account the influence of the crisis on these things. Even so, it is a figure still way above the average in Western Europe, and the same report estimates that around 4 million people are involved in some way in undeclared economic activities.

Despite the collapse of the construction bubble, Spain still continues to be the home of an unhealthy percentage of high denomination Euro banknotes. There have been frequent calls made for something to be done to force this money out into the open. Spain's budget problems are much more a consequence of uncollected revenue than of some imagined reckless overspending by the government. Ideas on what to do range from proposing the abolition of the €500 note to a change in its colour; although something similar would probably need to be done with the €200 version as increased pressure on operations involving €500 notes has led to something of a shift. Perhaps a search of religious institutions might also help?

Looking For Another Rato

2011-03-07T19:56:00.000+01:00

According to some recent reports, the Partido Popular is hunting for someone who would make a credible job of implementing something which currently doesn't exist. The PP's economic policy, the miracle cure for the crisis. Although we don't know any of the content we do know, from what party leader Mariano Rajoy has said in the media, that the secret recipe will work in just two years. The problem is that, following the sad fiasco of the appointment of Manuel Pizarro at the last general election, the PP lacks any heavyweight politician who can deal with economic matters.

The model of course is Rodrigo Rato, currently very busy with Caja Madrid or Bankia or whatever it's called this week. Rato is regarded by many inside the PP as the man responsible for Spain's economic miracle, having been economy minister between 1996 and 2004. His reward for these years of hard work (and the Spanish collaboration in the Iraqi invasion) was to become the boss of the IMF, although he didn't manage to serve a full term in that job. Indeed, a recent report on the complete failure of the IMF to anticipate the crisis has not done a great deal for the credibility of Rato.

Of course we have to recognise that Rodrigo was just the political appointee running the shop, it would be unfair to expect him to answer for the failures of the organisation which in any case he abandoned before things got really grim. But it does help to put Spain's economic problems into a bit of context. It's easy to forget, especially if you assume the PP's arguments, that there ever was an international context to the crisis. The convenient thesis for all of those unwilling to deal with the implications of the financial crisis has been to pretend that dozens of economies went simultaneously into recession because of the incompetence of their governments. Reality is turned on its head to sustain this fiction, so the budget deficit becomes a cause of the crisis rather than a consequence.

In the Spanish case it's really worth going back to the boom years before the crisis to put things into perspective. Because the economic model that Zapatero's administration pursued until the crisis brought the good times to an end was exactly the same as that implemented by Rodrigo Rato under Aznar's administration. Not so, PP supporters will protest, Zapatero has ruined the golden economic legacy left to him by the PP. So here's a party game that you can play with anyone who sustains that argument. Ask them if they can name the person who spoke for the PP on economic matters between 2004 and 2008. I know, it's not much of a party game. Frankly it's for those very quiet nights. But there is a good reason why many PP supporters won't be able to answer the question. There was no economic debate in Spain before the crisis hit.

You could put forward a good argument for saying that Zapatero should have changed the PP's economic model, so that the profits created by the bubble could have left something for the future. But he didn't, and the PP certainly never asked him to. This is important because the few clear signals we get on the PP's economic policy suggest that they are simply aiming to repeat the Rato bubble again; except that now they have to try it in circumstances that are much less favourable. Add to this their admiration for the Cameron model of turning stuttering growth back into imminent recession and you might think that the 2 year estimate is starting to look a little optimistic. There doesn't seem to be a rush of volunteers yet to fill that economics vacancy.

Gaddafi's Spanish Connections

2011-03-05T13:52:00.000+01:00

With the rush to condemn Colonel Gaddafi's attempts to crush his opponents in Libya, it is almost possible to forget just how many friends he managed to make around the world in recent years. Spain is no exception to this. Do a Google search for images of the colonel with Aznar or Zapatero and there is no shortage of results. In Aznar's case, the friendship stretched to permitting the great leader's son-in-law, Alejandro Agag, to open a partridge hunting estate in Libya. The relationship was apparently sealed with Agag inviting one of Gaddafi's sons for a happy hunting trip in Spain.

In return the Libyan regime also became a landowner in Spain, owning a substantial 6.500 hectare finca in Málaga. It seems that there were plans to construct houses and the obligatory golf course on part of this estate, but that the proposal ran into planning difficulties. This seems to be an extraordinarily anomalous situation given that everyone else in the country has normally gone ahead and built their houses without even worrying about the minor details of licenses. A further connection with Spain is that one of the Libyan leader's numerous sons has been studying in Madrid, a post-graduate MBA at the IE Business School. It appears that following the scandal this week involving the London School of Economics, Khamis Muammar has been hastily expelled from the school. I'm not sure on what grounds, after all the significant web of connections that Gaddafi's regime possesses suggest few problems of incompatibility between business and the art of repression.

With the available stock of Arab dictatorships declining rapidly, we are now getting a flurry of visits from Western leaders to the region. Hot on the heels of David Cameron's recent arms sales trip, Spanish prime minister Zapatero was in Qatar last week. It seems to have been a successful visit, with the local regime showing interest in investing some oil money in the foundations for Spain's next banking crisis as the local savings banks are transformed into real banks with even greater potential for creating havoc with our money. What's the betting that Qatar's rulers will be ahead of us in the queue for recovering money should things go badly wrong again?

There was another, unfortunately timed, international trip by Spanish politicians recently. As Mubarak's regime in Egypt was collapsing, a high level cross-party parliamentary group led by José Bono was visiting the former Spanish colony of Equatorial Guinea. Human rights featured nowhere on the agenda for the meetings with one of Africa's nastiest dictatorships, the visit was yet another attempt to get the regime to allow the former colonial power a cut of the country's significant oil wealth. Really the visitors should have worn Repsol advertising on their clothes. Obviously several other countries have no qualms about dealing with the regime led by Teodoro Obiang, so Bono was at pains to avoid any annoying references to the lack of democratic institutions by claiming that the two countries had many more things uniting them than dividing them. I hope the drivers protesting about the new restrictions on motorway speed limits in Spain appreciate the efforts that are being made on their behalf.

Drive Less Quickly And You'll Have More Time To Think

2011-02-28T19:50:00.002+01:00

It's quite amazing to see the reaction to the Spanish government's announcement last week of a 10km reduction in the speed limit on motorways. Anyone might think that the most fundamental of all human rights had been breached by the measure, which was justified as a means of reducing petrol usage. The current limit is being "temporarily" reduced to 110km along with measures to cut train fares in a bid to encourage people to switch to public transport.

Despite the hysteria generated by the announcement it makes very little difference to all but the longest of journeys. A 360km journey will take a terrifying 15 minutes longer once the new limit comes into place on March 7th. In return the country (together with those drivers who obey the limit) gets to spend less on its fuel bill helping the balance of payments at a time when the cost of petrol is rising sharply. In addition we get less contamination and probably some further improvement in accident statistics. Terrible isn't it?

Accusations by opponents of the move that the real intention is to increase income from traffic fines seem to ignore the fairly obvious consequence of less petrol being sold; the government loses significant income from taxes. In any case fines are only available for those who choose to ignore the limit. Always ready for a bit of empty populist rhetoric, the Partido Popular has denounced the measure as being reminiscent of the Soviet Union, and no doubt the same people who claim the anti-smoking law is evidence of creeping dictatorship will be on the case.

The new government in Cataluña had already anticipated the PP's position by lifting an 80km restriction around Barcelona that was working quite well, and counted as one of the few measures to reduce the awful traffic pollution problems. Critics like to claim that the new measure won't work, and it is arguable whether it is sufficient to really make a difference but I'm sure may of the same people made similar claims about the measures which have led to a massive reduction in deaths due to traffic accidents in Spain.

For the boy racers whose favourite activity is to go up to 2 metres from the car in front to try and force them into another lane, any restrictions are an attack on their inalienable right to put other people in danger. I laugh when I see people claiming that the way forward is to educate drivers on how to drive more efficiently, as if those who have supposedly learnt to drive properly to get a license don't forget half of what they have learnt as soon as they get it.

With everything else that is happening you have to wonder about some people's priorities. The economic good times have left this legacy of people who buy expensive, powerful cars and have contempt for anyone who hasn't done the same. Making train fares cheaper is not a bad thing but it won't attract these drivers to switch, they regard public transport as being for losers even though in Madrid at least it is generally excellent and cheap. For the moment.

The Best Dressed Candidate In Town

2011-02-24T19:56:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I've written about the Gürtel corruption case. Things have been relatively quiet although the investigation continues to proceed and the amount of (usually public) money that was ripped off by those involved continues to grow. Now, with regional and municipal elections approaching in May, the case has returned to prominence because of the effect it can have on Partido Popular candidates standing at those elections. The most notable case is undoubtedly that of Francisco Camps, the Valencian president. Camps looks almost certain to be facing a trial for his acceptance of gifts of expensive clothing from those behind the Gürtel scams. The confirmation of this could easily happen in the next few weeks, leaving the Valencian leader in what you would think would be a vulnerable position.

Today the national PP has, somewhat reluctantly, issued official confirmation of Camps as their candidate for the elections. The party has been dragging its heels on this issue whilst waiting to see what happens in the courts. The word is that PP leader Mariano Rajoy would have preferred to drop Camps altogether, but we know how things work with Mariano and taking decisions. The Valencian PP has forced the hand of the national party by organising their own proclamation of the man who modestly describes himself as the candidate with the most support in the entire history of the Western world! In reality you have to say that today's decision doesn't absolutely guarantee that Camps will make it all the way to election day, although the political cost of replacing him with the campaign ever closer may be higher than letting him stand.

Both Camps and the PP have been engaging in intense background legal manoeuvres to try and delay the announcement of a trial, obviously with the hope that they can kick it into touch until after the elections. This is not because Camps will lose the election, all the signs are that rampant corruption in Valencia is having no effect at all on the PP's support in the region. It's more a question of appearances. Having a candidate who could soon be on trial for corruption forces the PP to openly argue what they privately believe, that it doesn't matter how corrupt you are as long as you can persuade people to vote for you. The philosophy has been best expressed by (who better to say it?) notable tax dodger Carlos Fabra who has claimed that Camps will be absolved by the ballot box.

All of which gives us a taste of what to expect if the PP recover national power in 2012. In true Berlusconi style we can expect a PP government to devote much of its time in office to rescuing its own members from their legal difficulties. All parties are the same, some say, and that's certainly the argument that the most corrupt like to promote as they benefit from such a belief. But there isn't currently any other party in Spain that dedicates itself so energetically to undermining any legal process involving their members as the PP does. Nevertheless, in the interests of balance I'll point readers of this blog in the direction of a map of political corruption prepared by the No Les Votes campaign; created by opponents of the Ley Sinde.

The Photo Opportunists

2011-02-23T20:10:00.001+01:00

We already know that El Mundo likes to play games with photographs, but today it seems that they have shot themselves in the foot and perhaps even lost some readers. The paper featured prominently on its front page this morning a snatched, blurry, photo of Esperanza Aguirre en route between the operating theatre and her room, following the removal of a potentially cancerous tumour. We'll have no sick jokes about Aguirre being removed from a benign tumour if you don't mind! The photo seems to have been captured by a mobile phone and has provoked outrage amongst many of Aguirre's supporters because of the invasion of privacy. It's worth noting that many of these people have shown no previous anger over El Mundo's ever more frequent use of tabloid journalistic ethics, it seems to be merely a question of who the victim is.

Meanwhile, I hope that readers of this blog have noticed that I have shown commendable restraint over Aguirre's illness. I have resisted any temptation to question whether she got priority over other sick people on the hospital waiting lists. I also express my sincere hope that she is never sick enough to require the application of palliative care. This could cause great suffering when you bear in mind the tremendously callous policy adopted by Madrid's regional government on the use of such pain relieving treatment.

This wasn't the only story in El Mundo today concerning the use of photographs. The paper claimed in another article that a photograph on the new web page in support of the re-election of Madrid mayor Alberto Ruiz Gallardón could lead to the page being closed down under the new anti-piracy Ley Sinde! The header of the page has been clumsily "photoshopped" in order to include an image of Gallardón against a background of happy smiling citizens. We know this because the same picture (without Gallardón) can be found elsewhere on the web and can be purchased from one of these internet photo stock sites.

A flustered town hall responded that of course they had paid for the right to use the image, and then confusingly added that they would change it. Perhaps because it was now evident that none of the people shown standing with Gallardón were actually residents of Madrid, and perhaps also because at least one of them seems to have been cloned. According to the not necessarily reliable El Mundo some of these people are Danish, which raises the question of whether Gallardón, having ruined Madrid, has now set his sights on governing Copenhagen? The last time I looked the picture was still the same but just in case I decided to capture a screenshot for posterity.

A Poor Return From Nueva Rumasa

2011-02-22T20:23:00.000+01:00

The full-page advertisements have been appearing in the Spanish press for a couple of years now, encouraging private investors to ignore the meagre offerings from the banks and put their money into a rapidly expanding company with a great future. With interest to be paid at rates of around 8% per annum, the offer from Nueva Rumasa clearly was too good to be true and last week the company announced that it was seeking temporary protection from its creditors.

Obviously those creditors include the estimated 5000 investors who bought in to the scheme and gave the company around €140 million. Sadly for these investors, it seems that they could end up at the end of the queue if the company finally goes bust; an outcome which is quite possible. The reason for this is that Nueva Rumasa was effectively offering nothing more than IOU's in return for the money, and way ahead in the queue if bankruptcy occurs are the other multiple creditors of the company which include the Spanish tax and social security agencies.

There is quite a lot of history behind Nueva Rumasa. The head of the company, José María Ruiz Mateos, had the previous (and larger) incarnation of the company (Rumasa) expropriated by the government led by Felipe Gonzalez back in 1983. The reasons given for this action had much to do with the similar circumstances surrounding Nueva Rumasa, a mountain of debt and unpaid bills. Ruiz Mateos fought many legal battles against the government and was prosecuted himself for fraud; he never got his company back.

Idolised by some as a martyr of a cruel socialist regime, he has managed to reconstruct a business empire apparently using the same principles as he did the first time. Wages are unpaid, providers are unpaid, social security and tax payments are pending, and now we have a small army of investors who are seeing what looked to them to be a fantastic offer turn into a potential nightmare. The difference this time is that he has located his companies offshore, making it even harder for creditors to get their money back.

The whole operation has the look of a Madoff style Ponzi scheme as any money made available has been used to expand the business at the expense of paying the costs of those companies that already form part of Nueva Rumasa. These companies are mainly producers of food and drink, but also include hotels and Madrid's other football team; Rayo Vallecano. Ruiz Mateos has claimed he would gladly shoot himself before seeing any investors lose their money, but that unfortunately his religion (he is a devout Catholic) doesn't permit him such an option.

It's sad to see small scale investors faced with losing their money, but it's hard to feel too much sympathy given the obvious danger of the investment. The government commission that regulates investments warned several times about the lack of protection available to those who put their faith in don José María, nobody can claim that they weren't advised. Like those who were caught in the stamp investment fraud a few years ago, people have fallen for an offer that was just too incredible when compared to returns on other investments. If the stamp case is anything to go by, it will all turn out to be the fault of the government as investors seek to find a scapegoat for their own poor decisions.

Modern Day Slavery In Almería

2011-02-21T19:43:00.000+01:00

This depressing report from the Guardian on conditions in the greenhouses of Almería appeared a couple of weeks ago. Much of the report doesn't come as a great surprise to anyone a little bit familiar with the way in which a good proportion of Europe's vegetables are produced using immigrant labour working and living in often appalling conditions. Much of this came to light several years ago following the racist pogrom in the town of El Ejido. Whether you are aware of the issue or not, the accompanying video is well worth watching.

What I didn't know about until today was the dreadful response of the local media to the Guardian's report. Via David Jackson's blog I came across the articles which the local Voz de Almería has run on the issue. Unable to acknowledge in any way that much of the wealth of the region has been built on the exploitation of immigrant labour, they attempt to characterise the report as sensationalist journalism and portray the exploiters as if they were the victims. This, together with the typical and pathetic "there are problems everywhere" attempt to minimize the importance of what happens in the region.

Apart from the portrayal of the conditions which immigrant workers have to put up with, one of the most interesting aspects of the video is the effective confirmation that there has been a deliberate policy in Spain of directing illegal immigrants to areas like Almería where the government knows they will be working. Obviously for very low wages and without any rights. When you hear politicians who complain about the regularisation process that was carried out a few years ago for paperless immigrants, you have to remember that what those politicians seek is a situation just like that which exists in the greenhouses.

Cinema....The Goyas 2011

2011-02-15T00:05:00.000+01:00

Spain's annual cinema awards ceremony, the Goyas, took place last night with almost as much interest being focused on relations between some of the main participants as there was shown in the prize giving itself. The Goyas have come quickly following the row over the Ley Sinde, supposedly intended to combat internet piracy. Film director Alex de la Iglesia made it as far as the ceremony as president of the Spanish cinema academy, despite pressures for him to stand down earlier following his resignation announcement in the wake of the PP-PSOE deal that rescued the Ley Sinde in the Senate.

De la Iglesia had been criticised within the industry for having dared to come down from the mountain and treat critics of the new law and internet users in general as if they were human beings instead of monstrous thieves. Last night in his final act as academy president he had to sit next to culture minister Ángeles González Sinde, in whose honour the law has been named. His farewell speech was a cracker, he reminded his audience that internet wasn't the future, it's something that's already here and the cinema industry has to learn to live with it and to learn how to relate to their audience. There were some stony faces in the audience, a noisy protest outside the ceremony by opponents of the Ley Sinde was also largely ignored by the television coverage.

Returning to the awards themselves, the surprise big winner of the night was Pa Negre (Black Bread) which took several of the most important prizes. This outcome has been treated with derision by many, who say that it demonstrates the lamentable state of the Spanish film industry. It probably doesn't help that Pa Negre was shot in Catalan and is set in the period just after the Spanish Civil War. Burn the heretics!

Now I'm part of what seems to be quite an exclusive club, I've actually seen Pa Negre. What's more I liked it very much, even though I don't think it would have been my first choice as Spanish film of the year. Most of the critics of last night's awards almost certainly haven't seen the film although there is at least now a possibility that more people will be able to see it following the prizes it won. The way in which cinema distribution functions means that only one cinema in the whole of Madrid is currently showing the film, probably most of Spain hasn't even had the chance to see it. I don't know whether it can be downloaded!

Those who judge the quality of their movies by the size of the budget, the big names involved or the special effects may as well not bother trying to watch it. Pa Negre isn't really about the Civil War, although the plot at times may lead you to suspect this and the new order created after the war has its effect on the way in which events unfold. It's much more about the dark history of the village where the film is set. Based on a book by Emili Teixidor and written and directed by Agusti Vilaronga, it features a very strong cast and deserved more recognition than it got from the original release.

Apart from seeing Pa Negre, I've also managed to get to see the other three films that competed with it for the best film prize. Of the rivals it was De La Iglesia's own Balada Triste de Trompeta that made the least impact on me. It's better than his (to me) misfiring attempt to move away from his typical style with The Oxford Murders, but it didn't have the spirit of his earlier films even if we did get a dramatic finale on the Cruz de los Caidos that fully matches those epic battles from his other films that took place on the rooftops of Madrid's Gran Via.

Then there was Buried, or "Booryedd" as everyone insisted on calling it last night. A Spanish film because of its director, Rodrigo Cortés, the film takes on the difficult task of portraying the nightmare of a kidnapped American contractor in Iraq who awakes to find himself buried underground in a box with just a lighter and a mobile phone for company. No other actors appear in the film apart from Ryan Reynolds as the lead, the other participants are just voices on the other end of his phone connection. You wonder whether such an idea be sustained for a full length feature but for me this film worked and maintained the tension throughout.

The final big contender was Iciar Bollain's También la Lluvia (Even the Rain). This movie also takes on a notoriously difficult task, that of representing the making of a film within a film. That and attempting to use this as a hook on which to compare the situation facing the indigenous peoples of South America at the time of Columbus with that faced by the modern day inhabitants of Cochabamba in Bolivia. Based on real events surrounding the attempted privatisation of the water supply for that city, the fictional part is provided by the attempts of the foreign film makers to see through their project about Columbus and the divisions between the greedy colonists and the priests who tried to restrain their brutal treatment of the native peoples.

All of this is a bit too much for a two hour film to take on, but if I'd had to choose my Spanish film of the year then this would have been it. Strong performances from the always reliable Luis Tosar and Karra Elejalde who got the role of the actor who gets to play Columbus. In the end last night Tosar lost out to Javier Bardem for the best actor award, although it's not as if he's been badly treated in previous editions of the Goyas. Instead it was Elejalde who won a prize for the film as best supporting male actor. Amidst all the noise about the Ley Sinde and the future of the industry it's actually been quite a good year for Spanish films, and for all the talk about piracy cinema audiences have not been too bad either. In case anyone is wondering, I paid happily to go and see in a cinema all of the four films mentioned in this post.

La Cortina De Humo

2011-02-12T19:39:00.000+01:00

We've now had about 6 weeks of Spain's tougher anti-smoking legislation, and it looks very much like this law is here to stay. Despite the predictions of widespread disobedience, it's now a regular sight in Madrid to see smokers standing on the street outside bars or restaurants and the law is being observed with very few exceptions. It's even been quite funny to read accounts of people who seem to have suddenly discovered the link between spending the night in a smoke filled bar and the smell of their clothes afterwards.

A significant part of why the law is succeeding comes from the fact that the noise being made by outraged smokers is out of all proportion to their weight in Spanish society. It's a widespread assumption outside of the country that almost every Spaniard smokes constantly, but it simply ain't true. Before the tougher law was introduced I'd already noticed a steady decline in the number of smokers in bars and concerts, and the new reality here is that most people are not smokers and are happy to be in places that are not full of smoke.

A lot of the opposition has come from bar and restaurant owners who fear a decline in their takings with smoking being banned. Now maybe I go to the wrong places but I've been enjoying nights out in Madrid in bars or restaurants that seem to be as busy as ever. Some restaurant owners were opportunist enough to start using the law as an excuse for firing employees as early as two days after it came into force! I know I've complained before about the short termism of Spanish employers but even so.

The new legislation has also created a very unappealing martyr for the cause of smokers liberty. The owner of a restaurant in Marbella openly defied the law from the beginning and has finally been forced to shut the place down or obey the law on the orders of Andalucia's regional government. Marbella is of course a place where respect for the law could hardly be said to be a well-established tradition. In this particular case the restaurant owner has become a hero for the likes of Intereconomía because of his insistence that nobody should be allowed to eat a steak unless there is someone blowing tobacco smoke across it. His arrogant "I do what I feel like doing" attitude is nicely topped by his thoroughly balanced description of the government as being Marxist and terrorist. He has deservedly won his very own Twitter hashtag, #eltontodelasador.

The requirements of opposition to everything the government does leads many Partido Popular supporters to talk about how we now live in a dictatorship where nobody is allowed to do anything. Funnily enough I don't think their party has presented any proposal to change the law when they come to power. Things can really get a bit ridiculous, I was in a shop last week where the owner was talking about a fire that was raging in a nearby building. On hearing the word smoke, the customer in front of me launched into the "dictatorship" diatribe for all the world as if a house fire was just a minor distraction. I felt like suggesting it could have been started by a smoker but I showed commendable restraint. After all, you have to feel sorry for people who are now only allowed to smoke, er, almost everywhere.

Nor should we forget the contribution which some politicans and smokers themselves made to the toughening of the legislation. It wouldn't do at all not to acknowledge the role played by that crusader for individual liberty, Esperanza Aguirre. It was her decision to defy the previous law that meant it went virtually unenforced in Madrid. Under that legislation nobody should have been smoking at all in a concert venue but once she made it clear that the law wouldn't be enforced then smokers felt free to do what they wanted. I went to a concert a few weeks before Christmas in Madrid where it was written very clearly in large print on the ticket that the band respectfully requested those attending not to smoke during their performance. The result was, predictably, that nobody took any notice. Is it any wonder, given such arrogant selfishness and unwillingness to think of others, that the previous law had to be hardened?

Sortu....Testing The Law That Bans Political Parties

2011-02-09T20:28:00.002+01:00

A few people went to Spain's interior ministry today to register their new political party. The new party is called Sortu, and the reason why it is creating headlines is because it is seen as being a successor platform to Batasuna, ETA's political wing. The new organisation is an attempt to recover the political space that was occupied by Batasuna until its illegalisation under the controversial Ley de Partidos.

There is a difference this time, one which has to be seen in the context of ETA's ceasefire announcement. The new party has copied much of its constitution from other legal political parties, like the PSOE or the Basque PNV. In addition, Sortu's representatives have also explicitly rejected the use of violence to achieve their political aims, and have included a specific reference to ETA as part of this rejection.

All of this creates an interesting situation. The Ley de Partidos allows parties to be banned if they support violence or terrorism. On the basis of the constitution presented by Sortu there is no justification for illegalisation of the new party. Despite this it seems fairly likely that state prosecutors will call for Sortu to be banned, and therefore prevented from participating in the municipal elections in May.

The Partido Popular is openly in favour of illegalising the new party, regardless of what the law says. As far as they are concerned any movement that may lead towards an end to ETA's activities is a trick and the looney right were marching on the streets of Madrid again last Saturday; notionally in opposition to ETA although there was far more chanting against Zapatero and Rubalcaba. Zapatero has already commented ironically on how different the reaction would have been had the PP been in power.

In the end, if Sortu is not allowed to exist it will be a political decision rather than a legal one. The judges may say that the new party has failed to condemn ETA's past attacks, or to call for its immediate dissolution. All of which is true, but is not legal grounds for illegalising a party. This is the sort of situation where we could see just what a bad law the Ley de Partidos is, it was created to specifically prohibit Batasuna and permits a formal legal cover for decisions that have a purely political background.

I registered for an invitation for a new web site called Storify some time ago and had forgotten all about it until I got the invitation the other day. This site allows you to aggregate information from different sources about a topic and one of the issues I have decided to use to test it is the ETA ceasefire. It also allows you to embed the resulting story in another web page. I will continue to add new reports as I see them, what is shown here are a few that I collected yesterday and today.

I've Got A Solution For The Spanish Economy...It's Just That I Can't Read It

2011-02-05T20:25:00.000+01:00

Unintentional political comedy was provided last week by Mariano Rajoy, as he appeared on El Mundo's digital TV station to present himself as the alternative to Zapatero. Asked for his policies on Spain's disastrously high youth unemployment, Rajoy reached for his notes only to discover that he couldn't read his own handwriting. So instead he attempted to bluster his way through the question, obviously unable to say anything of significance on the issue without having legible notes.

What makes this moment so special is that the question he was asked appears to have been pacted in advance, it wasn't that he didn't have any warning about it or lacked time to prepare properly a response. Although it might have appeared to viewers that the questions were spontaneous, this was not the case and the woman (a self-confessed PP supporter) who asked the question had already appeared together with Rajoy on El Mundo's front page a couple of days earlier. Ironically with a headline where Rajoy claimed he would sort out the Spanish economy in 2 years. The interviews with the paper and the TV channel were part of a several day love in between El Mundo and Rajoy, who have not exactly got along well given El Mundo's preference for Esperanza Aguirre. However, with the sniff of power it's time for a reconciliation.

The newspaper interview did at least give us some hints on what has so far been a very carefully hidden, or perhaps badly written, PP programme for economic recovery. Privatisation (= public sector gifts for private sector friends), tax cuts for businesses at the same time as (unspecified) cuts are made to control the budget deficit, the reintroduction of tax relief for mortgages and a familiar populist swipe at immigrants with the old idea of an integration contract more or less sums up the measures Rajoy proposes. With the tax relief proposal it's fairly clear that they are staking their hopes of sorting out the economy on another round of bubblenomics, with the slightly inconvenient problem of all those unsold houses from the last bubble. No indication of future growth coming from anything else.

The PP has also launched an offensive recently against Spain's regional autonomy. The ball was set rolling by José Maria Aznar who called Spain's decentralized political structure unviable. I'm curious to know what someone who spends so much time in the US, and who lavishes praise on that country, has to say about the federal structure there? Or in Germany? Rajoy has of course adopted a softer line on the issue than Aznar, as part of his bid not to offend the abstainers who he hopes will help him gain power at the next election. The PP's loyal electorate is kept happy with the prospect of action being taken against regional nationalism, but don't say it too loudly in case the anti-PP vote is mobilised.

The Debate Goes On, But The Government Isn't Listening

2011-01-25T20:20:00.001+01:00

Maybe I was being hopelessly optimistic when I thought that the emerging debate around the Ley Sinde was going to influence the outcome. The Spanish government spent much of yesterday in frantic last minute negotiations with the Partido Popular to resuscitate in the Senate what they had lost in the main chamber. The claim is that the new version of the law agreed with the PP offers more guarantees against the arbitrary closure of web sites accused of violating intellectual property rights, but this claim is hotly disputed by opponents of the law.

The reality is that the changes agreed do not substantially alter the nature of the legislation. The decision to proceed against a web site will still be an administrative one taken by a government appointed committee, with the role of the judicial system reduced to certifying that no breach of fundamental rights has taken place. The new version also contains some very dangerous ambiguous wording, allowing for the existence of a site to be placed under threat solely on the basis of an alleged "susceptibility" to cause financial harm to a claimant. This ambiguity opens the door wide to abuse of the new powers.

The two main Spanish parties have continued to defend a model of intellectual property legislation which has been written in the interests of the large entertainment companies who seek to defend at all costs a model of doing business which is becoming unsustainable. The industry is being offered a bypass of the judicial system which is available to no one else with a grievance to pursue. Both the PP and the governing PSOE are demonstrating whose interests they act in here, with the recent Wikileaks revelations having shown strong pressure from the US government for Spain to crack down in this way. The PP, which has contrived to find a way to oppose every other government measure makes an exception when it comes to defending big business interests.

So what happened to the attempts to find common ground between representatives of the industry and opponents of the law? It was going quite well, despite occasional misunderstandings and disruptive efforts. A sign of how well it was going is that film director Alex de la Iglesia announced today his resignation as president of the Spanish cinema academy in protest at the way in which the government and the PP had just decided to ignore the constructive discussions that were taking place. No longer can they claim that the Ley Sinde has the full backing of the artists affected by piracy, there is a now a clear division of opinion between those who look forward and search for a new model to support creative work and those who simply try to hang on to the way things were before the internet.

It's all a sign that neither of Spain's major parties really understands the internet, except as a platform for propaganda or something which they need to try and control. The PP recently asserted the bizarre position that the data on Spanish citizens held by different internet companies should be treated as being part of Spanish territory and be held on servers based in Spain. They don't understand it. The politicians have treated all non-industry opinion on the intellectual rights issue with absolute contempt, and it's clearly going to take a bit more than people getting angry on Twitter to make them rethink their position.

Will Spain See A New Generation Of Emigrants?

2011-01-24T20:31:00.001+01:00

I went down to my 'quiosco' to buy my paper a couple of weeks ago. I know, I am one of those hopeless dinosaurs who still likes to buy a newspaper made of paper. Part of the reason why I still do it, apart from habit, is that the man I buy my paper from is a chatty, cheerful person even on the most miserable of days and we usually talk a bit about world affairs; from a footballing perspective. Focused especially on the fortunes of a club located down near Madrid's famous river.

On this particular day, though, we talked about something else. He said he was having a conversation with another customer about how Spaniards were emigrating in search of work because of the crisis. My first reaction was to ask "where to?". After all, there aren't that many countries on the search for immigrants at the moment with much of Europe still supposed to be attempting an exit from the crisis. My second reaction was to say that not so much has changed, the scarcity of work in Spain may be making more people think about leaving in search of opportunities, but the reality is that many were doing the same even at the height of the economic boom.

The issue has come to the fore this week with reports that Germany will be looking to recruit qualified Spaniards when Mrs Merkel comes to town in a few weeks to survey the wreckage. But leaving aside for the moment the effects of the crisis, why would many young Spaniards have left the country during the good times? The comparison with Germany becomes important at this stage. Germany's economy contracted almost as much as Spain's during 2009, something which many Spaniards find difficult to accept in their belief that the Spanish crisis was somehow unique. The big difference is that unemployment hardly rose in Germany, whilst in Spain it shot up through the roof.

The fault of the Spanish government, many argue, but if you want to understand why Spain didn't adopt something like the 'kurzarbeit' policy that saved many jobs in Germany you have to look beyond the government and include the employers in the overall picture. A scheme where the government pays a portion of what would otherwise just be paid as unemployment benefits so that workers don't lose their jobs seems like a no-brainer. The fundamental problem I think lies with the employment culture in Spain, and this is where the question of emigration even during the good times comes back into play.

The German companies wanted to keep their workforce, they had probably trained many of their employees and it makes long term economic sense to maintain stability if you can do it. Spain's boom, on the other hand, was dominated by short-termism. The search for the next 'pelotazo', which goes hand in hand with contracting people on a series of temporary contracts so that if you suddenly decide there is more money in jamón de bellota instead of solar panels you just get rid of one set of workers and recruit another. In the land of the Diaz Ferráns there was never much of an audience amongst employers for the idea of protecting employment, on the contrary.

Then there is a structure in so many companies which is frankly discouraging to anyone thinking of making a career. You might be very well qualified, you might even be really good at your job, but you can still find yourself dedicating years of effort in the same post to supporting a thick, immovable, layer of bosses and the associated 'enchufados' above you. Sure you'll get told how well you're doing occasionally, although your performance is unlikely to be reflected in the salary you get paid. That's why I work for myself and why many talented Spaniards have decided that they have better opportunities elsewhere, regardless of the macro-economic figures of the day. It's easy to criticise people for opting to become funcionarios, but not so easy to explain what better options are available for them.

Nor is there any reason to imagine that this will change dramatically over the years to come. The Partido Popular, feeling itself close to power again, is selling a seductive and in many ways comfortable notion that all that is needed is a change of government for the sweet smell of economic success to return. It's a tempting but cruel delusion for those unwilling to think too deeply about where that growth might come from. The 13 years or so of boom left behind no base of any kind for future economic growth, based as it was mostly on a variety of 'build and grab'. Spain's boom years were built on circumstances that no longer exist, and even if the PP want to give the lords of the ladrillo another run for other people's money there is the tiny detail of those hundreds of thousands of unsold dwellings. Emigration is a worse option now than it was a few years ago, but the difference is not as great as some would pretend.

The True Costs Of Gallardón's Folly

2011-01-22T20:57:00.000+01:00

It's time to unite the threads of two issues that I have posted about before on several occasions; Madrid's appalling pollution problems and the mega project to bury the M-30 ring road that has become the defining act of Alberto Ruiz Gallardón during his time as Mayor of the city. On the pollution issue a report in El País this week more or less confirmed what we already knew - Madrid continues to exceed the legally permitted maximum levels of emissions of nitrogen dioxide with all the effects this has for the health of the city's residents.

The overshoot of the contamination limits comes despite the city administration having had what they obviously thought was a very clever plan to sort out the problem; that of moving the measuring machines from zones with high readings to ones with much lower measurements like the Casa de Campo. This fraudulent trick did have the effect of achieving what looks like quite an impressive reduction in emissions between 2009 and 2010, but was still not enough to bring the city within the limits. The result is that the official figures are a significant underestimate of the real situation.

The difference now is that the maximum limit has changed from being a recommendation to being a European requirement. So does Madrid have a new master plan to make the city safer for those who breathe the air? It does indeed, the master plan is to ask for a moratorium in the application of the new legislation. Not because Madrid's rulers need more time for their extensive traffic reduction plans to take effect, they don't have any. The failure of the machine moving ploy to deliver the goods effectively leaves them with no ideas on complying with the law, so we are left with what will be a series of delaying tactics.

Which brings us to the M-30. I was walking down by the river last Sunday in the relatively warm sunshine we had a week ago. It was very pleasant to walk along the now pedestrianised banks of the river Manzanares. However, any idea that by burying the ring road the city has also managed to bury the problem of traffic pollution was soon dispelled by the sight of a familiar haze in the distance. It's important to remember that what many choose to see as an environmental project was in reality a road widening scheme, and a characteristic feature of new or wider roads is that they encourage yet more drivers to take their cars out.

People were not just walking or cycling by the river last Sunday. Men were working there too, planting regimented ranks of anaemic looking trees to replace some of the healthy adult specimens that were chopped down years ago at the beginning of the vast project. People working at weekends on municipal projects is a sure sign of impending elections, and there will undoubtedly be intense pressure for everything to be left at least superficially finished in time for Gallardón to run his re-election campaign in May.

What many voters may not be aware of is that the 'environmental' part of the project has been largely paid for by the national government, through the much maligned Plan E and its successor. It's unlikely that Gallardón will want to remind anyone of this at election time, but his administration has been effectively bankrupted by the crisis and the huge debt left over from the road-widening and pollution increasing part of the project.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's good that the river is a place where can people can walk or cycle without roaring traffic. I just take issue with those who regard this project as some great visionary work. "Visionary" would have been deciding that Madrid would benefit from not having a multi-lane ring road running through the interior of the city, and a fraction of the huge cost of the project could have been much more usefully spent on traffic reduction and diversion. Oh, and as a side effect it might just have been possible for Madrid to comply with pollution laws.

Instead we got more traffic, more contamination and a debt that will reduce the level of public services offered in the city for a generation. We are already seeing the start of the big sell off, as properties that were acquired with the intention of providing social facilities in areas that don't have them are instead being put up for sale. This after the city has spent a fortune on keeping them empty for years whilst the money got spent on the big road. Cuts will take place in all kinds of services over the next few years, as the city pleads with Brussels that it hasn't been given time to come up with any ideas to keep its citizens healthy.