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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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.

From Tucson To Murcia

You don't normally get many people comparing Arizona to Murcia, unless they are studying low rainfall statistics. That has changed now, with the manipulation by the Partido Popular of an assault on a member of Murcia's regional government. Pedro Alberto Cruz, responsible for culture and tourism in the region, was beaten up by three men on Saturday and as a result he was hospitalised with facial injuries.

Although one man has been reportedly arrested today in connection with the assault it is still not known who the perpetrators were, but it has become an issue of national controversy because of the way in which the PP has attempted to use the incident to attack the national government. There is a tense situation at the moment in Murcia because the heavily indebted regional government has attempted to introduce severe cutbacks. This has naturally provoked protests from those affected, and the PP has immediately attempted to link the assault on Cruz to the local opposition.

The way in which they have done this has non-accidental echoes of the debate following last week's shootings in Tucson. The more fanatical elements of the Spanish right have been hugely offended by the suggestions that the Tea Party style of all-out confrontational politics may have created an atmosphere in which people who oppose them are placed in physical risk. The offence is of course that those who dearly want to imitate the Tea Party model naturally tend to use the same methods. So in the best traditions of their political philosophy they accuse others of doing what they themselves specialise in.

In the Murcian context this strategy has two advantages. In the first place they can try to criminalise any opposition to their policies by associating all their opponents with the actions of three individuals. Secondly, the PP could organise a masters course in presenting themselves as victims, so in this case the attack has happened because of the alleged negligence of the national government. We're still waiting for the formal accusation that Zapatero or Rubalcaba personally authorised the assault on Cruz, it can only be a matter of time. 

This is not the only recent case where the right has tried to present an assault on one of their supporters as a political cause celebre. Remember the alleged persecution last year of Telemadrid presenter Hermann Tertsch, who was also hospitalised amidst PP claims that he was the victim of political persecution. It eventually turned out that Tertsch had been involved in a bar brawl in the wee small hours of the morning that had nothing to do with politics, but this didn't stop the attempts of the right to try to pin the charge on their opponents. They never rectify. It was also, memorably, the incident that led to the unintentionally hilarious and bizarre case of a news bulletin being introduced from a hospital bed by a man wearing pyjamas. 

Returning to the case of Cruz there is still no evidence of a political motive for the attack, not least because we don't know who did it. There was one witness, who described the attackers as looking "normal", something which has no doubt forced the police to drop automatic suspicion of foreigners and people whose facial features fit the criminal profile designed by 19th Century criminologists. I've strongly resisted the temptation to suggest that it also rules out PP members as being possible perpetrators. I don't want this post to veer towards bad taste. There is, however, still no other reason to reject that possibility either. Murcia has lived for a good few years off construction and the culture of the 'pelotazo', and that can easily create all sorts of enemies for a politician.

The only thing we still missing is a Sarah Palin style video appearance from Esperanza Aguirre. Doesn't bear thinking about. In the meantime we get lectures on civic behaviour and political tension from those who idolise the heroes of hate radio and television.  People like Losantos, who probably gets paid per minute of crude abuse, or the creatures of the deep that insult so freely on digital channels like Intereconomía try to pretend that they are not the ones seeking a climate of tension. I can't resist the occasional feeling that the left should return the treatment they receive from the right, it only seems fair. I know, it drags you down to their level. But you wonder what other ways there are of educating them.

The Ex-Prime Ministers Society

Just in case you were worried about how former Spanish prime ministers were coping with the economic crisis, I can assure you that they are not doing too badly. Hot on the heels of the announcement that Felipe Gonzalez had got a nice part time job with Gas Natural we've now found out that José Maria Aznar has got one too with Endesa. Both men will be very well rewarded for whatever it is that they have to do, although it seems that Aznar has cut the better deal to add to his other business activities.

It helps to explain why everyone else in the country has just been handed a 10% increase in their electricity bills. The industry minister Miguel Sebastian explained that the increase was the equivalent of a cup of coffee, which suggests he doesn't pop down to his corner bar very often. He seems to drink coffee as much as his boss. Now Aznar was in power when the privatization of Endesa was completed, but we won't hear any of that left-wing nonsense about conflicts of interest if you don't mind.

Aznar's administration was also the author of the law that explains much of the increase in electricity prices. The 'deficit tarifario' was a device that allowed the PP to hold down electricity price increases by introducing legislation promising that the companies would be fully compensated in the future. By another government. As someone recently observed, this is like farting in a lift and leaving the consequences for the next person who enters.

Today I read that both Aznar and Gonzalez receive a guaranteed €80,000 a year from the Spanish state. Given that they are earning so much money elsewhere, surely there is a case here for a bit of means testing? Especially as they both like to give lectures on the value of financial prudence. Let's say that those former leaders who choose to dedicate their time to earning money based on their former position learn to do without any contribution from the state, given the tough times in which other pensioners live. That will leave some money for those who dedicate their retirement to good works.

What Happens If ETA's Ceasefire Is For Real?

The latest declaration by ETA of a general and permanent ceasefire doesn't seem to have done much to change the outlook on achieving an end to political violence in the Basque Country. The problem with the statement is that it attempts to take us back to 2006, when the group also promised a "permanent" ceasefire, one that was broken when they didn't get what they wanted from the negotiating process with the Spanish government and which led to the 2007 bomb in Madrid airport that killed two people.

Maybe ETA, recently under intense police pressure, want to try and pick up the thread of negotiation where they left it before that bombing. The Spanish government doesn't and it's not hard to see why; the possibility of a repeat of what happened in 2007 is a political risk they will be unwilling to take. Add to that the view that with ETA being so weak they are not in a position to demand concessions in return for abandoning violence. Despite this, there is for the moment one significant difference with the previous process; the international dimension. This has meant that the ETA declaration included a willingness for their ceasefire to be verified by the international community.

Potentially this difference could be very important, with its echoes of the Northern Ireland process where international observers supervised the destruction of IRA weapons. ETA hasn't gone as far as saying that this is what they mean by verification, and the international mediators who have been contacted will be understandably cautious about getting involved without certain guarantees of the process leading somewhere. The word that is really missing from the ETA statement has been taken up by their political wing, Batasuna, in the last 24 hours. That word is "irreversible", but it's still not one that the men who hold the guns have uttered.

The illegal Batasuna is said to have been hoping for a clearer declaration that would pave the way for the legalisation of the party in time for it to contest the municipal elections in May. That looks an unlikely prospect given the very cool reaction by the Spanish government to the latest ceasefire. Batasuna will probably test the Ley de Partidos that was introduced to illegalise the party, by proposing a new organisation with a constitution that rejects the use of violence. According to the law that would be enough for the new party to contest elections, but in reality the decision is a political one and a bad law will continue to be used until either of the two major national parties decides it shouldn't be.

At least one of those parties, the Partido Popular, can be relied upon to oppose any movement that even suggests that Zapatero's government could preside over an end to ETA. That's what they did the last time, and a party whose atrocious and repugnant manipulation of terrorism as a political tool has been a consistent feature since March 11th 2004 is not going to change now.  The first demonstration by the far right Libertad Digital/ Hazte Oir crew has already been called for the 5th February, and the insane myths about how Zapatero has pacted the handover of Navarra to ETA amongst other concessions have also been resurrected for the occasion. Expect far more shouting against the government than against ETA.

We can also expect the South African international mediator, Brian Currin, to become something of a hate figure for much of the right in Spain; even though his involvement is only going to have the intention of bringing about an end to violence. The same has already happened to the prominent Basque Socialist politican, Jesús Eguiguren, only for having the temerity to suggest that a ceasefire declaration would merit a response from the government. This is a man who has been an ETA target for years but such things matter little to the fanatics who have more or less branded him as being part of the group.

Whilst ETA and Batasuna are working hard on building up the international dimension of the process, the government is attempting to avoid this. But if it turns out that ETA really are willing to go the full distance then there will surely have to be some sort of positive response. The suggestion that the Spanish police will be the ones who verify the ceasefire is absurd, it goes along with those who say the only way out is for ETA to formally surrender. That's not the way these things happen, and it would be a serious matter if a chance for peace was turned down on the grounds that Spain rejects any international involvement.

It's very hard to have an accurate picture of what is going on inside ETA, but it's clear that there is intense debate in Batasuna and almost certainly inside ETA itself about the way forward. The rejection of the opportunity that existed in the last process has ended up with more of their prisoners drifting away from the cause, and with former supporters more or less openly questioning the point of ETA's existence in a way that didn't happen often before. It's still ETA's move, but that doesn't mean the other players shouldn't be preparing their response.

On Your Right You Can See The Garage Where We Park The Bus

If you're a tourist in Madrid today and you fancy a trip around the city in one of the open-topped buses of Madrid Visión then you're out of luck. The concession granted to the company by Madrid's town hall has expired and the service has come to a complete halt due to a dispute about whether the company should hand over its buses to the city. In the meantime it seems that the buses could be off the road for several months.

There are those who question whether the service is worth having anyway, a report I read last week in El País said that the buses sweep past many of the city's landmarks without so much as a word of explanation. Instead the tourists get music. It's a lucrative business though, according to this report the company made €62 million last year, of which almost a million goes to the almost empty coffers of Gallardón's administration.

A few years ago this service didn't exist at all, in fact Madrid had a pretty dreadful lack of services for tourists. Then suddenly it seemed as if there were several companies trying to operate tourist buses at the same time. In came the usual suspects, with their decrees that they and only they would decide who gets to operate such a service and awarded the contract to a single company. One of the major participants in Madrid Visión is none other than Gerardo Díaz Ferrán, already famous for having been simultaneously the leader of the national employers association and a contender for the prize of closing down the most companies in a single year.

Whether don Gerardo is about to lose what must be almost his last business is now open to question, as the tender for the concession is being prepared. The new contract will of course give more money to Madrid's administration, as well as requiring tourists to be shipped to such exotic and singular delights as the foaming white water of the Manzanares rapids as the river sweeps through the verdant parkland which er, might be ready for use in a few years time.

It's Torture Regardless Of Who The Victim Is

Last week a court in the Basque Country convicted four members of the Guardia Civil of torturing two members of ETA. It was ruled that the victims were beaten up after being arrested and subjected to an ordeal which included being ducked in a river. The ETA members concerned were subsequently convicted of being the authors of the bombing at Madrid Barajas Airport in 2007, which killed two people and marked the beginning of the end for the last attempt at reaching a negotiated solution for terrorism in the Basque Country. 

The accused officers claimed that the injuries suffered by the victims were self inflicted, but independent medical reports were consistent with the claim of mistreatment and the court accepted that torture had taken place, sentencing four of the accused to prison sentences. It's very unusual in Spain to get a conviction for police mistreatment of prisoners, above all if the case has any connection to terrorism. The Spanish government has a long standing policy of claiming that all accusations of torture form part of the training of ETA members for when they are arrested, the implication being that all such accusations must be treated as false. This case was no exception, interior minister Rubalcaba made a statement at the time of the arrests denying any possibility of torture, a statement which has mysteriously disappeared from the ministry website following last week's verdict.

In effect this automatic defence by the government against any accusations of police violence or mistreatment gives the police carte blanche to do more or less what they feel like doing. Those of us who lived in the UK during the cases of the Guldford Four or the Birmingham Six know only too well where tolerance of such actions eventually lead. To the conviction of innocent people. There are too many who will defend the actions of the officers concerned, and even claim that the conviction is a blow to the struggle against terrorism. It's even quite possible that an appeal to a higher court will find a judge who is not prepared to accept the idea that members of the security services break the law. I for one am very glad to live in a country where torture is a crime, even if it is difficult to obtain a conviction. 

Mariano Rajoy Y El Sueño Eterno

I've commented before on Mariano Rajoy's almost legendary capacity to put off taking any important decision, but with 2011 only 3 days old we already have another fine example of the syndrome. The former general secretary of the Partido Popular in Aznar's time, Francisco Alvarez Cascos, has been running a noisy campaign for several months to be selected as the PP's candidate for the regional elections in Asturias. Cascos has many enemies in the Asturian PP, and the party there has chosen a different candidate.

Finally, after letting the argument rumble on for months, Rajoy was roused from his deep slumber and the PP acted last week by ratifying the choice of the Asturian party. This decision has provoked Cascos to resign from the PP and there exists a very real threat of him forming his own organisation to contest the elections in May. Cascos has claimed that his resignation after 34 years of PP membership was prompted by a lack of support from the national party in the face of alleged insults that he received from prominent PP members in Asturias. However, it seems far more likely that his exit is simply the result of his campaign to be selected failing. The day is still far off when insulting people ceases to be a common practice in the PP.

What nobody understands is why the national PP took so long to reach their decision given that the Asturians picked their candidate months ago. The party has allowed Cascos to continue with his campaign to try and force the PP to overrule the local party's choice. He has received powerful support in this campaign, implicitly from Aznar and more openly from Esperanza Aguirre. To the extent that the Asturian PP told Aguirre recently to pay more attention to her own affairs, and stop interfering in their business. Fat chance of that happening, and in any case Madrid does better when Aguirre is distracted by other matters.

Rajoy could have taken the same decision a long time ago and even if that wouldn't have avoided Cascos resigning it would have been a far more low profile affair, with less risk of danger for the PP's chances of recovering power in the region. But Rajoy has acted in this case as he seems to act with all major problems, waiting to see whether it will disappear. This is how he has acted with the never-ending conflict between Aguirre and Alberto Ruiz Gallardón, and also with the different crises provoked by the progress of the Gürtel corruption case in Madrid and Valencia. It seems that the case of Cascos reveals another facet of Rajoy's behaviour - it is claimed that Rajoy led Cascos to believe that he had the support of the party's leader when they met. This is not the first time someone has left a meeting with Rajoy believing that he will do one thing, only to find he does the opposite.

Cascos has behaved like a regional cacique, believing that he could impose his will on a party that is hardly noted for the democracy of its internal processes. One of the points made by his critics is that he has effectively abandoned active politics during the bad times only to re-emerge when things start to look good for his party. Another factor, a notable indicator of just how bad his relationship is with the Asturian PP, is that Cascos did much of his campaigning in the place where he was registered as a party member....in Madrid.