So Did Pinochet Go To Heaven?

I don't have much time for José Bono, but he hit the mark quite well the other day with his protest about the threats of the Spanish Catholic Church against those members of parliament who dared to vote in favour of the abortion law reform. How is it, he asked, that a mass murderer like Pinochet could continue to receive communion whilst those Catholics who also happen to be democratically elected representatives can have it withdrawn because of the way they vote?

Of course Pinochet wasn't just a mass murderer, he was a thief as well. It couldn't all be about torturing your opponents and then chucking them out of helicopters, there was money to be made too. Baltasar Garzón has extended the now famous case against the late general to include his money laundering activities and the bankers who were only too ready to help out. I wonder how many of them went to confession.

The Prisoner Of Lanzarote....Aminatou Haidar

Two weeks ago the Moroccan government decided to expel Aminatou Haidar, a human rights activist from the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara. Haidar had just returned from a trip overseas and the official excuse that the Moroccan government gave for her expulsion was that she refused to put her nationality as Moroccan on her entry form as this would recognise the annexation of Western Sahara by that country. The Moroccan authorities seized her passport and put her on a plane to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. What happened next is quite strange, normally no Moroccan citizen can enter Spain without a passport but this requirement was waived in the case of Haidar. Inside Lanzarote airport Haidar then tried to buy a ticket to return to El Aaiun, the main city of Western Sahara, but was refused the right to travel on the grounds that she had no passport!

Leaked documents have since revealed the planning behind the Moroccan decision to expel her, several flight reservations were made in her name before she arrived back at El Aaiun. It's very difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Spanish government has effectively colluded with Morocco over Haidar's expulsion by admitting her into the country. Now the only solution they are offering is for Haidar to claim political asylum, something she does not want to do because it will effectively confirm her exile. So Haidar is still in Lanzarote airport and has been on hunger strike for almost two weeks in an attempt to be allowed to return home. She is no stranger to hardship, having spent time in prison in Morocco and been tortured for the "crime" of favouring self-determination for the Western Sahara.

The case is now becoming embarrassing for the Spanish government, as it should. So far their attempts to persuade Haidar to abandon her hunger strike have failed and there is a growing campaign in support of her. Spain has been weakening its stance on Western Sahara for years now, more or less accepting the annexation of that territory but without openly declaring a position. Spanish foreign minister Moratinos has issued a typically ambiguous statement saying that he does not want to be regarded a pro-Sahara or pro-Morocco. Haidar's hunger strike is now challenging the Spanish government for assisting the Moroccans in ridding themselves of opposition to their control of Western Sahara.

Intereconomía: Where Ignorance Comes First

You couldn't make it up part 9456. As if having Libertad Digital TV wasn't enough, those of us who live in the PP heartlands are also blessed with the gift of Intereconomía. This channel would have us believe that the use of condoms to help prevent HIV infection in Africa is doomed to failure; because of the climate, because of the apparent absence of manicures and because Africans are said to be unable to read the instructions.



via Escolar.net

Nazi Punches Fascist In Madrid

I saw a reference in the press the other day to a clash between two far right groups in Madrid on the anniversary of Franco's death. I didn't realise, until I saw it on El-Andaloose, that the meeting organised by Democracia Nacional was attended by Britain's Führer wannabe Nick Griffin. Searching on internet for more information I got taken to a place where I had never been before - the BNP's own website. This has an account of the trouble at the meeting which is frankly surreal when you consider the group that it comes from. Take a look at this excerpt.

Twenty-five members of a fascist group closely aligned to the English Defence League attempted to disrupt a Democracia Naciona (DN) party meeting yesterday in Madrid addressed by British National Party leader Nick Griffin, reports our European correspondent. “There was no disruption to Mr Griffin’s speech, which was very well received by the packed room of DN supporters,” our correspondent said. The fascists, fresh from celebrating Franco’s birthday at a rally elsewhere in Madrid, demanded access to the DN meeting and had to be removed after scuffling with the police. The DN is an up-and-coming Spanish nationalist party which has modelled its political platform on the BNP — and is therefore detested by the fascists and neo-Nazis. According to their blogs, the skinhead football hooligan types who attempted to disrupt the DN meeting are closely aligned to the English Defence League.

I can't tell whether they are trying to be satirical, but the news that the different far right groups seem to hate each other more than they hate anyone else is surely welcome. Naturally it will just be coincidence that Democracia Nacional organised a major rally on the anniversary of Franco's death. Also worth noting in the same report is Griffin's response when questioned about Gibraltar:

"It is a very complex issue which we will have to deal with in the future,” Mr Griffin said. “It would be much easier to sort it out if we had nationalist governments in Britain and Spain because it would then be an agreement between equals. I must say that taking into account the geographical situation of Gibraltar and the Muslim threat on its door, I would prefer to see a Spanish flag fly in Gibraltar before an Islamic one."

Presumably DN and the BNP could agree on a common symbol for that flag.

The Caganers I Want For Christmas

I have to admit, living far away from Cataluña as I do, that I hadn't come across the concept of the caganer until I saw this article in El País. Now I'm sold on the idea and the fact that these particular models are going to be on sale this year in Madrid means that I already have a Christmas present sorted out...for myself.

Help A Wolf Across The Duero

How does "You can't shoot me, I live south of the river" sound as an argument? The river in this case is the Duero and for the Iberian wolf it has now become the official boundary between being a hunted species and a protected one. This is not to the liking of the regional government in Castilla y León who generally like to give a free hand to those who want to hunt animals over those parts of the landscape that have not yet been turned into urbanisations. Fortunately for the wolf the local courts are not yet quite as subordinated to political power as they are in certain other regions I could mention. So there is at least some protection in the region that contains the greatest part of the wolf population in Spain. Getting them to cross the river is another matter.

The Main Victims Of The Pirates Are The Fish

The freeing of the Spanish fishing boat that was captured by Somali pirates has put an end to what was becoming a very uncomfortable situation for the Spanish government. A substantial ransom seems to have been paid to recover the Alakrana and its crew after over 40 days of captivity. What made the situation much harder to resolve, at least from the point of view of those who saw a solution in negotiation, was the capturing by the Spanish navy of two of those said to have been involved in the seizure of the boat. Well not so much the capture, but the subsequent decision to bring them to Spain rather than hand them over to Kenya as has happened in other similar cases.

This decision set in motion a confusing judicial process and in addition a thinly concealed confrontation between government and judiciary. First we had a game of pass the pirate as questions over the age of one of the captured men meant that no judge was willing to take on his case. Some said he was over 18, others that he could be younger. Then, as it became clear that the issue of the captured men could hold up freedom for the Alakrana, we got the desperate search for a means of getting the two men out of Spain without making it too obvious that politics was winning over judiciary….again. One possibility explored was going to be the handing over of the two men to the Somali government, an administration that has about as much control over that country as I do over wins the Christmas lottery in Spain. Not that this detail mattered too much.

In the end it wasn’t necessary, as enough money was paid to free the Alakrana and its crew. The government had tried very hard to blame the judges for creating this messy situation, but eventually it became clear that the decision leading to the alleged pirates being brought to Spain was set in motion by the government's own lawyers. Now the opposition Partido Popular is as eager to use this case to make opposition as it is with everything else. They like to pretend that Zapatero's government has given way where other governments would have stood firm - as if there are not plenty of other examples of the Somali pirates having been paid off in other countries. Armchair warriors are always easy to find. Peridis in El País saw it this way.

What Peridis maybe missed out from the end of his instructive English lesson is a frame showing the Spanish fisherman happily returning to the same waters where the Alakrana was seized. These fishermen can get back to their own brand of piracy, which consists of fishing everything they can from these waters with as little regulation being exercised as possible. The Alakrana was outside the zone protected by naval forces when it was taken, and it was outside because there they could fish without any sort of control. The assumption that these boats deserve protection needs to be challenged. The Spanish government has rightly turned down requests for the boats to carry Spanish soldiers, but they have contributed to the cost and training of the hired mercenaries already on the boats

We wait to see what happens when these providers of heavily armed private security use their weapons against someone who turns out not to be a pirate. It doesn’t sound like an operation where questions will be asked before firing. This determination to carry on fishing in such a high risk area is an indication of just how profitable the tuna piracy business is. Spain did its very best recently to destroy an initiative to protect tuna stocks in the Mediterranean, again because of the protests of those who will happily fish everything they can until nothing remains - at which point they will demand assistance. It was Roto, also in El País, who saw things from the point of view of the tuna.

Valle De Los Caídos....The Case For Demolition

1). You restore a beautiful wild mountainside that was destroyed by the construction of a brutal, ugly fascist monument. The monument continues to be maintained with public funds.

2). You avoid this.



3). We could have a small scale memorial, appropriate for its surroundings, placed in memory of those political prisoners who died building El Valle de los Caídos.

Camps Takes Valencia For A Ride

The image of the week so far in Spain has to be this one. As Partido Popular leader Mariano Rajoy was delivering his big speech on the need for the PP to unite behind his leadership there were a couple of notable absentees from the event. One was the renegade Aguirre, but that didn't surprise anyone, and she excused herself quietly on the grounds of family commitments. Francisco Camps of Valencia decided to make sure everyone noticed his absence by leaving for a far more important event; he had to be seen driving a Ferrari in the presentation of Fernando Alonso as a member of that Formula 1 team.

Camps is increasingly becoming a problem for his party and for Rajoy, who had depended on the support he got from Valencia to bolster his own position. Last week in the Valencian parliament Camps made the extraordinary accusation that the opposition PSOE wanted to take him out for a Spanish Civil War style execution which would leave him lying face down in a makeshift grave. Even Camps had to at least partially retract this attack, which many people saw as a sign of his increasing nervousness and erratic behaviour as his previously safe position comes under threat. Not that the threat comes from the opposition in Valencia, his main enemies now are in his own party. In any case, there is far more accumulated experience within that party of bodies being dumped by the road side.

Another insight into the world according to Camps came from a report describing an exchange he had with the judge who was investigating the case of the gifts he is said to have received in the Gürtel case. Questioned about a recorded conversation where Alvaro "El Bigotes" Perez had suggested he was in debt to Camps, the Valencian president allegedly replied by claiming that all Valencians were in his debt because of what he had done for the region! Clearly not suffering from problems of self esteem, he seems unable to deal with the possibility that he may be on the road to becoming a liability for the PP. In the meantime, expect lots of expensive distractions like the one we saw on Sunday, the circus must continue.

La Playa De Las Catedrales

In another of our summer trips to the north coast we spent a weekend exploring the coastline lying on both sides of the Asturias/Galicia frontier. We based ourselves in the small Asturian town of Tapia de Casariego, which turned out to be a good choice. On day one we headed for what is probably the most famous beach on this stretch of coastline, La Playa de las Catedrales. Our route started and finished in the village of Rinlo, just a few kilometres inside Galicia. From here there is a signposted Ruta de las Playas which takes you for about 7 kilometres along the coast to Catedrales. It's an easy route to walk and much of it passes directly beside the coast, although some stretches have to be walked on the road. Whilst thousands of people at this time of the year head directly for the Playa de las Catedrales, there are other beautiful beaches along the walking route we did.


Many of the beaches on this coast are only accessible when the tide is out, and it makes sense to check the time of low tide before doing this walk. We got to the Playa de las Catedrales at a good time for the tide, but also at the point when most of the people on holiday in the region decided to descend on the same spot. Despite the crowds, the beach is big enough to take it and walking around the caves and rock formations of the beach was still quite possible. Our route took us along the top of the cliff above the beach before finally descending.


Obviously with so many people on the beach at low tide you can spend a lot of time taking photographs of people who are in turn taking photos of other people.


Because the high tide completely covers the beach, many of the rocks on the lower part of the cliff are home to colonies of mussels and the inexplicably popular goose barnacles - percebes.



A final comment on this route, the reward for the walk was a hugely satisfying arroz caldoso de marisco in the restaurant run by the Cofradía de Pescadores in Rinlo. Strongly recommended if you like that sort of thing - I think you might need to reserve at a busy time of the year.

In the afternoon we did another walking route around the estuary of the River Eo, from Figueras to Castropol. This is also a marked route although finding the starting point in Figueras is not so easy, it's up in the village rather than down by the waterside. They say the route is 4 kilometres one way, although I suspect its a bit more than this. Perhaps it was just the effect of the arroz de marisco that made me feel that way. In any case, doing both of these routes on the same day is probably a bit too much for those who prefer a more relaxed pace of life.


The next day we walked another coastal route, this time starting in Tapia itself. From the village you walk across the beach and up the other side where they have a recently built urbanisation/coastal atrocity that makes you imagine that the Ley de Costas has never existed. From here there are two choices, if you follow the "official" route then you follow the road for a while before getting to a path that takes you down in between the maize fields to the coast. The less official way is to try and follow the coastline from the part of the urbanisation nearest to the sea, which will soon bring you to another beach. From there you can pick up the coastal path, although this occasionally veers inland to avoid the rougher and more inaccessible parts of the cliffs.

We walked up to a point where things got just a bit too difficult to continue following the coast. The beaches on this route are completely wild and can be just as beautiful, but much less popular, than Catedrales. The Atlantic coastline is almost always more impressive than that of the Mediterranean. There is of course the slight detail of the weather in these parts, but we were lucky yet again. I can't remember the name of the beach below, not sure if I ever knew, so for me it will always be Iguana Beach.



Back in Tapia there was a festival of Celtic music in the evenings, as I found out years before on my Navia visit it's a mistake to assume that Celtic Spain starts and ends in Galicia. It's not normally South of Watford policy to recommend restaurants but as I've already done it once in this post I might as well do it again. The pulpo and calamar en su tinta served to us in Tapia´s El Pilón were worth the wait in this busy place.

Eurovision 2010....The Countdown Begins

I know it's still early and that we haven't left 2009 yet, but I want to present a potential candidate for next year's Spanish Eurovision entry. I'm looking for suggestions for the name of the band, and for the song they can enter. Mamma Mia has already been taken, the Gürtel Blues might have pan-European possibilities. The choreography clearly needs a bit of work.

The Amazing Legend Of The Extremaduran Masturbation Workshops

As an example of how inaccurate news spreads rapidly across the Internet you could hardly do better than choose the reporting of a sexual education campaign launched by the youth department of the regional government in Extremadura. Because the name of the campaign is "El placer está en tus manos" and because masturbation is one of the many topics covered in the campaign it has now become more or less an established fact for many of those reporting on the issue that Extremadura is offering practical workshops on how to masturbate. This "bulo" started by some of the most notoriously inaccurate media in Spain has even spread to some of the foreign press.

The reality is very different and anyone who understands Spanish can read the document published by the campaign for themselves. This document seems to me to contain a sensible and straightforward exploration of many issues affecting sexuality. Naturally, those who believe above all else in the parental right to deprive their children of any sex education will no doubt be appalled by the content. The mere fact that it recognises the existence of homosexuality and contraception is in itself enough to enrage such people; hence the manipulation and distortion of its contents in some of the press.

One of the most bizarre aspects of the press coverage has been the emphasis placed on Extremadura being one of the poorest regions in the country. As if sex education should only be available for those areas with money to spend. The cost of the campaign is a hardly staggering €14000. Add up the cost to health and social services of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases and it won't take long to realise that this campaign will pay for itself even if only a tiny percentage of its target audience take it seriously. Obviously "Extremadura saves money through sensible sex education for young people" is unlikely to ever make it as a headline in the national or international press.

We'll probably now be hearing for years about the great legend of the Extremaduran masturbation workshops. It reminds me of the myths that still circulate in the UK about how the European Union is attempting to systematically extinguish all distinctive aspects of British culture. Many of them started life as tabloid inventions but they continue to live on for ever in the popular imagination.

A Mexican Health Warning

The Mexicans are no fools when it comes to taking sensible health precautions. If you don't believe me take a close look at this poster advising citizens in the state of Hidalgo about how to avoid spreading swine flu.


Flu might be the least of your worries if you are trapped into a deadly embrace with one of these two shady characters. You are more likely to get a 20cm blade lodged in your rib cage when greeting Espe or Alberto.

La Coruña

Some photographs of an August weekend trip to the city I shall call, in the interests of linguistic diversity, (L)a Coruña. Amazingly, considering the amount of travelling I've done in the rest of the country, this was my first visit to Galicia since my first ever time in Spain - the same journey that took me to Navia. I guess this is because it is just not easy to do a short trip from Madrid to this region - unless you fly and you can get a good timetable. On that first visit to the country I ended my fairly random wandering in Coruña and to be honest the place didn't leave much of an impression. This time I was far more impressed, things have changed for the better and it is not a bad place to consider for a weekend trip. I even took the gamble of travelling without anything to protect me from the rain and it paid off. After a cloudy but dry Saturday, the following day saw Riazor beach packed with people for what seems to have been the first day of summer in the city this year, at least according to the taxi driver who told us it was the worst summer he could remember in 35 years.

Inside that stretch of the city bordered on one side by the beach and the other by the port there are some pedestrianised streets, one of which is full of bars and restaurants and which leads to the Plaza of Maria Pita, a heroine of the resistance against an unsuccessful English attack on the city in 1589. This isn't the only English connection to the city. Starting from the small old city a bit further down from Maria Pita, we soon arrived at the park where the remains of General Sir John Moore lie in a shady garden overlooking the port.


Wellington seemed to have a feel for the diversity in Spain with his message "Españoles, dedicaos todos a imitar a los inimitables Gallegos". A message which the web tells me has travelled as far as the Centro Gallego in Buenos Aires. Down below this memorial is the Castillo de San Antón and from there you can begin to walk the 10 kilometres of paseo maritimo that the city possesses. We walked it all, some bits more than once.


Overlooking the ria it was strange to find a muslim cemetery for the North African troops who fought with Franco's forces in the Civil War. Obviously had they fought on the other side then their bones would just have been tossed into a hole beside the road somewhere!. The cemetery itself has ceramic decoration from which you learn the Arabic origin of so many Spanish words.


The open land nearby was used as an execution site by the Civil War victors and a "stonehenge" style monument now marks the spot.


One thing you won't be able to ignore is the fact that there is a tower in Coruña. La Torre de Hercules, recently declared to be a World Heritage site, is the oldest active lighthouse in the world. Most of what remains of the original tower is still said to be of Roman origin, in spite of successive remodelling operations throughout the ages. You can ascend most of the way up the tower and the views are worth it provided you can put up with the wind. Before you see the tower itself you will see it engraved on the paving stones, on the city shield which appears everywhere, and on the numerous posters supporting the campaign for it to be listed by UNESCO.


Over on the other side of the beaches there is the hill of San Pedro. Like many hills overlooking Spanish cities this was under the control of the military until they finally surrendered it to the municipality in the 1990's. It is now a public park and provides excellent views over the city as well as in both directions along the coast. As a reminder of its past usage there are still bunkers and two enormous guns which were imported from Barrow in Furness at the beginning of the 1930's. These weapons were never used in anger but apparently their 35km range protected German boats that wanted to stop in the ports of Coruna or El Ferrol during the second world war. Isn't the arms trade a wonderful thing? The paseo maritimo continues some way past San Pedro and out of the city, and it's possible to do the ascent of the hill from the end of the paseo too. Alternatively, there is a strange space capsule funicular to save you the climb.



This trip was never just going to be about walking, and Operación Pulpo was declared to be a great success. We tried a couple of the pulperias, unpretentious places that specialise in the tentacled beast to the exclusion of almost everything else. One was not far from the Torre de Hercules itself, and the other was somewhere near the railway station, located in ugly new Coruña. Perhaps not surprisingly, what Madrileños know as Pulpo a la Gallega doesn't seem to exist under this name in the region itself. The pulpo is almost always served without the ever present potatoes you see in Madrid, unless you get some as a side dish. Although we lived mostly off octopus during the weekend we did manage to squeeze in a mariscada on the Saturday night. For lovers of seafood the mariscada is heaven, and there are people who like nothing more than setting to work with their nutcrackers to get a thin string of meat out of a crab's leg. Personally I'm not a big fan of meals where the energy expended in getting at the edible parts is greater than that gained from eating them. Apart from anything else, I just don't see the point of eating percebes (goose barnacles), which are rubbery, tasteless and hugely expensive. I concentrated mostly on the gambas and cigalas. Tough life, tough choices.

Ready For Rajoy's Super Tuesday?

Last year it always seemed to be Monday that was the worst day of the week for Mariano Rajoy, as it is for many of us. In Mariano's case it was because that was the day chosen by his enemies inside the Partido Popular to complicate his bid to stay as leader of the party. Well last week he must have felt that every day was Monday, so bad did things get that even Rajoy himself finally had to protest and...this was a novelty...take decisions!

It was bad enough with the bitter battle taking place within the PP in Madrid over control of Caja Madrid, a conflict that reached its peak with the (kamikaze?) interview that Manuel Cobo gave to El País, in which too much about Esperanza Aguirre's leadership style was revealed for anyone's liking. Then Valencia struck back in a bid to steal the limelight. Ricardo Costa had resigned as secretary general of the PP in that region as a result of the revelations from the Gürtel case, at least that was what the national party claimed. The problem was that he carried on doing the job and the press reported it. Even that might not have disturbed Rajoy's siesta if it hadn't been for the fact that Costa felt the need to draw attention to his defiance. At that point the national leadership finally decided they had to do something, and Costa was promptly suspended from the party.

Meanwhile Aguirre, despite having effectively lost the battle to place her man in charge of Caja Madrid, was still mobilising her forces and preparing to surround the Ayuntamiento of Madrid until she got someone's head on a spike. By now there was hardly a senior PP figure who wasn't out there somewhere with their diagnosis of what was wrong with the party. José Maria Aznar couldn't be left out and launched a thinly disguised attack on Rajoy's leadership. Proving just how little shame he has, he even called on politicians to act over corruption. Given that the guest list from his daughter's wedding now reads like a Who's Who of the Gürtel case you would think that a bit of discretion might be advisable.

We even got the opinions of Manuel Pizarro, who if you remember was the PP's economics superstar in the last election...for about 30 minutes. Pizarro treated us to a parable of a shepherd unable to lead his flock without the help of a trusty sheepdog to keep order. He finished by claiming that Rodrigo Rato would make an excellent president of Caja Madrid, and an excellent head of the government! Woken up just before the removal men arrived to carry him away, Rajoy invoked the spirit of Job and declared that his patience was at an end. What's more, he set a deadline to put an end to the PP's crisis and that deadline expires today.

It's been a busy weekend, Valencian leader Francisco Camps had what was said to have been a very tense conversation with Mariano about Costa, and today he finally announced a successor for Costa's job. Camps gives the impression of living in a parallel universe where everything is "muy bonito". Knives are being sharpened around him but he seems completely unaware of how his situation is deteriorating. In Madrid Espe sent out Ignacio Gonzalez to confirm her defeat, as Gonzalez gave way to Rato in Caja Madrid. Here is the man who is probably the big winner in all of this, not only does he get another nice little earner but he emerges untouched by all the infighting surrounding his appointment.

Today we will get Rajoy's speech to the national executive, now that he has ensured a temporary ceasefire. Stand by for the internal party code of conduct on corruption! This will presumably be followed by the family photograph where everyone will gather as near to each other as they can bear to stand, the weapons having been checked in at the door. On Wednesday we will find out whether Aguirre gets a consolation prize as Manuel Cobo appears before the PP's disciplinary committee charged with telling the truth. The PP has a lead of 3% over the government in the opinion poll published today, but with data gathered before the latest crisis; a lead that is due more to a decline in support for the PSOE than any significant rise for the PP. It will take a day or two before someone in the party unfavourably compares Rajoy's advantage with that enjoyed by the Tories in Britain, then they can all get back to fighting each other again.

Corruption Keeps The Judges Busy

It's disgraceful. Nothing more than a brutal persecution of some decent politicians by a politically motivated judge acting on the orders of the government. Who will put an end to this shameful witch hunt carried out by Baltasar Garzón against our democratically elected representatives? Oh sorry....it's not the PP involved in this one is it? That's ok then, justice must be allowed to take its course and the judges decisions must always be respected.

At least in Cataluña they can argue that they don't let ideology and petty party differences get in the way when it comes to municipal corruption. Those arrested a few days ago on Garzon's orders include prominent figures from the PSC, Catalan wing of the PSOE, and from the nationalists of Convergencia i Unio. Like many other corruption cases in Spain, the main source of income has been the commissions that get paid when almost worthless land suddenly, and mysteriously, gets reclassified as suitable for building. Following the logic of the early days of Gürtel there should now be demands that somebody not connected to the case resigns. How about Mariano Rajoy? That proposal would even attract support from within his own party.

The case in Cataluña comes hot on the heels of another one in the Almerian town of El Ejido. At the heart of that case is the mayor of the town, Juan Enciso, who had already earned himself a reputation as a nasty piece of work following the anti-immigrant riots there a few years ago. His attitude towards the immigrant labour force whose work made the town wealthy was summarised in a phrase along the lines of "there are never enough of them at 8 in the morning, and always too many by 8 in the evening". Not a person to shed any tears for, Enciso seems to have managed to turn El Ejido into his own personal property.

El País told us yesterday morning that there is "desolación" in the Spanish parliament in the face of the growing number of corruption cases coming to the surface following the property boom. Clearly this feeling is still not so strong that either of the two major parties feel the need to legislate against corruption. In fact I suspect they will probably feel better after a good lunch or two and their sense of desolación certainly wasn't enough to stop them from voting down a motion that would oblige them to declare their assets. It's hard not to avoid the impression that what really causes the most pain is that there are some judges prepared to investigate these cases.

As Soitu.es Closes, Which Way To The Future?

Yesterday saw the sad announcement that Soitu.es, an independent Spanish web based news platform, was closing down after only 22 months of existence. Soitu was seen as an innovative development representing for many the future shape of information delivery on the internet. It established a sizeable readership in its brief existence, and went for an approach based around participation and sharing of technology and resources. The widgets I have used on this blog to report election results, and the software for the charts I have occasionally published all came via this site.

The problem was that Soitu was launched just a short time before the economic crisis started to bite. A site that delivered its content free of charge depended on income from advertising, and it is the collapse in such income that has provoked closures and sackings across the Spanish media in the last couple of years. There is currently no shortage of creative talent in the industry, but the model which allows that talent to be able to work on a sustainable basis doesn't seem to have been found yet. In hard times like the present, the publicity dependent business needs a friendly sugar daddy to keep it going. Soitu just had a bank, the BBVA, and it seems that they have now pulled the plug. Ironically, the same bank continues to advertise on the site with banners asking "¿Cuando quieres pagar? Tu decides".

With casino capitalism still being allowed to run rampant, we live in an age of constant economic instability and any business based on assumptions of good times can now find itself itself in trouble every 5 or 6 years as we lurch from bubble to bubble. The optimistic view would say that failures like that of Soitu are a necessary part of the process of establishing the future structure of information delivery. The problem is that current trends in the industry are in many ways leading to the sacrifice of quality in exchange for immediacy and volume of content. Legions of copy and paste merchants at work mean that it's possible for a story to appear in one site, and then echo around the others in no time - much of what passes as "news" being generated by trawling through what others have already published.

The widespread assumption is that media groups will need to start charging for content, but breaking the everything is free on internet habit is going to be even more difficult if the quality of the product being offered isn't worth the money. It's worth placing bets on who will be the first major media group in Spain to make a renewed push for a subscription based service for internet news delivery. Newspaper sales continue to decline in Spain almost wiithout exception, and all of the major media groups are having to rethink their business.

For some the solution is to widen the potential audience, and for Spanish media groups that means looking towards the American market. El Mundo, whose printed edition is now also called El Mundo.es, has opened an American section on its web site with news from the different countries. Whether this news is just rehashed coverage from the different media in South America is hard to tell. Meanwhile the owners of El País, Grupo Prisa, already have substantial business interests in South America and have now started investing in Hispanic media in the US as well. Expanding the target audience may help, but we will have to wait and see whether it's enough to make the difference.

Notorious Bandit Cornered In Caja Madrid

Full credit to Esperanza Aguirre, she never allows anything else to take priority over her own ambitions. When it comes to defusing a crisis you would never pick up the phone and dial E for Espe. Take the (still) ongoing battle for control of Caja Madrid, the regional savings bank and fourth largest financial institution in Spain. What began as just another example of Espe's empire building, handily combined with having a swipe at her rival Alberto Ruiz Gallardón, has now been transformed into a full scale confrontation between Aguirre and the Partido Popular national leadership. We're almost back where we were in the aftermath of the PP's general election defeat last year.

Having got her way in changing the law concerning representation in the governing body of the Caja, Aguirre has moved to propose one of her closest political allies - Ignacio Gonzalez - as the president of the bank. This has provoked a reaction from the PP's leadership who finally appear to have had enough of Aguirre's stealthy accumulation of power. PP leader Mariano Rajoy has made it clear that he thinks the job should go to former finance minister and IMF director general Rodrigo Rato. This is quite a shrewd move on the part of Rajoy, it's very hard for Espe to openly reject Rato as a candidate, he was the powerful figure in the Madrid PP before she took over and is widely respected within the party. There are suggestions that he is not really Rajoy's preferred candidate as the two men were rivals to succeed Aznar and are not said to get on well. Despite this, Rajoy is said to be determined to stop Gonzalez getting the job, amongst other reasons because the latter strongly criticised Rajoy's leadership when Aguirre was toying with the idea of becoming Mariano's successor.

So now it's a question of who will blink first, for the moment both sides are steadily maintaining the tension as the rest of the PP watches in bewilderment and dismay; as if Gürtel wasn't enough! Aguirre can impose her will, if she decides to gamble on Rajoy backing down. She has the power to push through whatever she wants in Caja Madrid. However, it's a high stakes gamble and the PP is not a federal party where each region can do what it likes. Ultimately, Rajoy has the power to remove Aguirre from her own position, although it's very unlikely he would choose to take things that far. He's not a person who has a reputation for standing firm, as we've seen with the farcical case of Ricardo Costa in Valencia who may or may not have resigned, depending on who you choose to believe.

The government has let it be known that they don't want Rato in Caja Madrid, officially because he walked out on the IMF to pursue the scent of money in investment banking, but probably more because he is too much of a heavyweight political figure for their liking. The Madrid section of the PSOE has been brought into line, a few days ago they seemed quite happy with the plans of La Lideresa as they had been promised some important posts of their own in return for supporting Gonzalez. The government candidate is a lesser known PP figure, Luis de Guindos, whose banking experience consists of having been boss of the Spanish division of, gulp, Lehman Brothers. Very confidence inspiring.

All sides loudly proclaim their intention of "depoliticising" the selection process, whilst at the same time pushing the politician of their choice. Not that too much attention should be paid to those who demand a more professional profile for the job. This is coded language for a banker. You know, one of these people who takes your money, multiplies it by a hundred, takes a good percentage of that as a reward for their efforts, gambles the rest on a dodgy package of someone else's bad debts, then tells you to ask the government for your money back. Frankly I think I prefer the politician, or at least one who would have the objective of making Caja Madrid serve the region. Gonzalez is obviously not that person, but the Spanish economy could use banks that do better things than just borrow cheap money from the European Central Bank to lend it back at a profit to their own governments.

Anyway, you shouldn't take any notice of what I write about Aguirre and her way of operating. It's much better to read direct testimony from within the Madrid PP, the priceless interview with Manuel Cobo published in this morning's El País. Cobo is particularly good on a favourite theme of mine, the difference between Aguirre's words and her actions. Manuel Cobo is the main political ally of Gallardón and this won him the distinction of being a prime target for Espe's gang of spies. He's clearly been waiting an opportunity like this to hit back and surely had the approval of Gallardón for what he has done. The reaction of Aguirre's supporters to the Cobo interview is, true to form, to threaten him with disciplinary measures. It all helps to demonstrate the sad fact that the most effective opposition to Espe in Madrid currently comes from within her own party.

Las Tablas De Daimiel On Fire

A few months ago I wrote a post on the plight of Las Tablas de Daimiel, but it seems that since then the situation in what is supposed to be one of the most important wetland areas of Spain has got even worse. The lack of water in the park has now led to a situation where underground peat fires are burning, and the European Union has threatened to intervene to force the Spanish government to act.

There's nothing very natural about this disaster, and it looks as if the Spanish government has more or less decided to let the park die. Now, with the threat of outside intervention, there is talk of a water transfer being arranged from the Tajo River. The poor Tajo seems to be the solution to everyone's water problems, and already there have been complaints from Murcia that water should be used to help preserve a national park when they can be using it to grow tomatoes. Precisely the attitude that has led to the once water sufficient Tablas reaching the state they are in today. It would be interesting to know whether any water from the Tajo still makes it across the frontier into Portugal. If anyone ever wants to create a monument to unsustainable management of water resources then Las Tablas de Daimiel will be as good a place as any.

The Gürtel Case Casts A Long Shadow

One of my unfinished posts before going on holiday was going to argue that the impact of the Gürtel corruption case was only just beginning to be felt. The main reason was not so much the continuing revelations in the press about the activities of Francisco Correa and company, it was more because the case was still under the "secreto del sumario", which keeps the investigation confidential until the prosecution case is established. While I was away that protection was partially lifted and those who liked to believe that the whole case was just an anti Partido Popular operation invented by Baltasar Garzón now have 17,000 pages of evidence to read involving criminal accusations against over 70 people. That should keep them going until the other two thirds of the case is also revealed. It is said that the main reason for the continuing secrecy is that investigators are following the international trail of the Gürtel millions.

Meanwhile the main action in the last month has been in Valencia. A police report claiming that the Valencian PP was using illegal funding from companies that received contracts from the regional government ended up causing far more damage than the case of Mr Camps and his very fine suits. After a protracted tussle, the national PP leadership eventually managed to force the resignation of Valencian PP general secretary Ricardo Costa. The nature of that battle tells us much about Mariano Rajoy's "leadership" of his party. Ever since being reelected as leader of the PP, Rajoy has spent much of his time in Valencia as regional president Francisco Camps had effectively become his main prop within the party. For Rajoy to make the Valencian party bend to his will in the case of Costa was never going to be easy and at one point it looked quite possible that he would fail. In any case, the temporary "resignation" of Costa appears to be a fiction; although not appearing publicly in the name of the PP it seems that he is still working from his office in the party headquarters.

Camps himself is seriously damaged by the affair, and there has been plenty of speculation about him being finished politically - some of it coming from within the PP itself. The arrogance shown by the Valencian PP in shrugging off evidence of corrupt behaviour doesn't just come from Rajoy depending on their support. The clear unwillingness of the Valencian courts to deal with any evidence against Camps and his allies must be very reassuring, as is the evidence of opinion polls that most PP voters in the region couldn't care less about the corruption of their representatives. The Valencian judges put on a magnificent display of judicial cynicism over the police report, which they had received from Madrid. We'll deal with that after the case of the suits, they said. Then, having shelved the case against Camps over his presents from the Gürtel ring, they used the fact that there was no case open any more as an excuse for not dealing with the police report! Such loyalty will surely bring rewards.

Back with the main prosecution case, we have learnt from the published evidence in a case already overrun with nicknames that Correa liked to be called "Don Vito". Clearly this was a man who did his utmost to avoid attracting any suspicion within the PP about his activities. Correa's own declarations also reveal that the advancement of his influence in the PP was much helped by Madrid's deputy mayor Ana Botella taking a shine to Álvaro "El Bigotes" Pérez. She likes men with moustaches, and the presence of both Correa and Pérez at the wedding of Aznar and Botella's daughter is the simple answer to those who would pretend that these people were marginal figures in the PP. Right on cue we get the announcement this week that Aznar - stop giggling at the back, this is serious - is going to deliver a series of classes on ethics and politics at a Catholic university in Murcia. I swear on a copy of today's Marca that I'm not making this up. Despite all of this the PP still seeks to present itself as a helpless victim of Correa and friends on the one hand ("los chorizos"), and the implacable persecution orchestrated by a shady organisation known as "el gobierno" on the other. If it doesn't bring a tear to your eye then you have no heart.

Saving the best for last, let's turn to Madrid and our revered regional president. Fans of Esperanza Aguirre, and she has some, have praised her for a quick witted reaction to the lifting of the secreto del sumario. She immediately expelled the three members of her group in the regional parliament who are facing criminal accusations, and her behaviour has been contrasted with that of the slow response by Rajoy and the Valencians. What is far more interesting is what the Gürtel sumario tells us about the way Aguirre's government works. She likes to present herself as showing the way when it comes to austerity and lean government, but almost all of the numerous and expensive contracts awarded by Espe's administration to the Gürtel companies concerned the organisation of events designed to promote the image of Aguirre herself.

Some examples. Espe visits an industrial estate in Getafe? Ka ching! That will be over €30,000 into the Gürtel coffers. La Lideresa inaugurates a school, an event you might have thought would cost little more than the price of her Metro ticket. Ka ching! More thousands of euros for Gürtel. Nothing is sacred here, how about a homage to the emergency workers that dealt with the aftermath of the Madrid bombings? Ka ching ka ching! Those who do not understand the dynamic of the liberalisation of public services may fail to comprehend why Madrid had to repeatedly pay the Gürtel companies to hire the same four plasma screens, or the red carpet tiles, or some of the most expensive flowers ever bought. As true economic liberals, Madrid's rulers handed the companies concerned over 300 contracts, broken into smaller ones where necessary to avoid any need to put the contract out to tender. We wouldn't want the chill winds of competition to spoil such a nice little earner. Despite this and the fact that she has had months to examine all the contracts, Aguirre would like us to believe she didn't know what was happening.