Tick-Tock!

The blustery weather of the morning has settled down to a sunny afternoon with breeze enough to move the topmost branches of the trees.  The actual weather may be settling down, but the political climate in Spain is reaching tornado force!

            



          As was obvious from the start of the ill-fated pact between the PSOE party (roughly Labour) and the new C’s party (right wing nationalist) as they did not have an overall majority between them, they failed to win the vote in parliament yesterday as everyone else (with one abstention) voted against them.  So we are now on for a revote on Friday when, unless something dramatic happens in the next few hours is likely to be a repeat of the last vote and therefore be the start of a new election campaign as the country is asked to vote again.

            The sticking point for PSOE, and what stops them being the government is a combination of old party arrogance; ‘barons’ in PSOE heartlands saying no; vested interests; fear of the break up of Spain, and hatred of Catalonia.

            PSOE could have won the vote on Wednesday if they had pacted with Podemos which is a left wing, recently formed party which is looking for a new way of doing politics in the country.  A country, I might add that, since the glorious death of the dictator Franco has gifted more power than it ought to have to the political parties as a way of ensuring the survival and growth of democracy.  However good the initial idea was, the reality over the past decades has seen the major political parties get too much power and begin to abuse it.

            

Spain has been rocked by corruption scandal after corruption scandal - every day something new and breath taking!

            Although PP (Conservatives) seem to be systemically corrupt with laughable proportions of the party being accused of what looks like clear corruption, the other parties are not immune from dipping their greedy fingers into the public till.  It was this morass of corruption that gave birth to Podemos and the C’s – both in their own ways suggesting a way forward.

            PP (amazingly, given all the negative publicity they have had) has the largest number of seats of all the parties, but no overall majority.  Even with their natural allies, the right wing C’s they could not form an overall majority.  So they, through their so-called leader refused the King’s invitation to try and form a government.  There has been a risible offer of some sort of government of national unity with the present leader continuing as president, but that was dismissed by all the other parties.

            PSOE and Podemos would have an overall majority if they pacted, and the leader of PSOE would then become president.  But, the power of vested interests and what looked like pretty inept political footwork on the part of PSOE and Podemos meant that PSOE pacted with the C’s – with all the consequent problems.

            Now that PSOE and the C’s have failed, there needs to be a new approach.

            Podemos (quite rightly in my view) will not pact with the C’s – they have little in common with them and they believe that the C’s are just PP in another guise.  Podemos are still prepared to pact with PSOE and then they will form the government.

            The presenting problem (if not the real one) is that Podemos is a blanket term for a number of politicians who are separatist.  So, for PSOE to become the government, it would have to pact with parties whose avowed intent is to break away from Spain.  This is a difficulty.  Podemos have also offered Catalonia a referendum about independence.  PSOE will have nothing to do with that and say that the whole of Spain would have to vote on any region opting out.

            There are real problems about the present organization of Spain into regions.  Most of which are to do with money.  Catalonia says that for far too long it has paid far too much into the coffers of Spain to bail out other regions and has not had the development money that it deserves for itself.  This seems to me to be a fair point, though as soon as any discussion gets on to the topic then sensible debate is lost in simultaneous shouting!  Then there is the Basque Country!

            So, there are problems about PSOE and Podemos getting together.  But that is why we have politicians.  It is their job to get what should happen to happen.

            The only way PSOE is going to be the government is with Podemos.  So what do they have to do to make that possible?

            The referendum for Catalonia can wait.  If PSOE forms the government (with Podemos) then it could reform the present system for the regions and eventually present Catalonia with a fairer system of finance and representation.  If they did this and then give the region (sorry, country) a referendum then I think that the majority of the population would vote to stay in Spain and in the EU.

            The other objections to Podemos are mirrors and smoke and the reality of power would show just how insubstantial those were.

            If PSOE want power they have to pact, and pact with Podemos.  Simple.  The rest is details worked out by the wonks of both parties who like that sort of thing.  The entire name calling and blustering of the past few days is no more than that; the reality of power is worth compromising for.

            But will they?

            If logic ruled the voters then no one in their right mind would vote for PP.  It has been shown to be systemically corrupt and arrogant about its guilt.  No one resigns in this benighted country, no matter how clear their guilt is.  But logic is not the force you can put your faith in.  30% seems to be the bedrock of PP votes.  30% of this electorate will vote for PP even if they started slaughtering children on live television.  And if they use the key words and phrases like: ‘break up of Spain’, ‘soft on terrorism’, ‘economic strength’, ‘Venezuela’, ‘ETA ‘, ‘Catalonia’, ‘stability’, ‘Cuba’ and the rest of the language of the right then they could actually improve their position.

            The C’s have shown themselves prepared to pact with ‘socialists’ (though of course PSOE are nothing of the sort) and their base voters (and yes, I do mean that to be a pun) might feel that they have been betrayed by the pact that their photogenic leader agreed to in his lust for power.  Perhaps the voters, who saw the C’s as a breath of fresh right wing air, might now return to their previous masters in PP.

            PSOE are in the most difficult position of all.  They have made a pact with right-wingers and it has failed.  So far.  Although the leader of PSOE has tried to appear statesmanlike, without the reality of power it is just posturing.  He has pacted with natural enemies, in the hope that he would be able to get Podemos on board (or at least abstaining) with a raft of policies that he felt that Podemos would have to support.

            Ideally, PSOE would have wanted the C’s and Podemos together with themselves forming a progressive, reforming party with PSOE playing the C’s off against Podemos so that they could get what they liked.  That hasn’t (yet) worked.

            In the next general election who knows what would happen to the PSOE vote.  The leader would have been shown to have failed, and if he doesn’t pact with Podemos, there might well be an unholy alliance of PP and the C’s which might in the next election have sufficient seats to give the present government the extension they want.

            The situation is, to put it mildly, difficult.  No party can really trust what might happen in another general election – but my instinct is that the right will come out better than the left and that we will have another PP led government.  Which will be an absolute disgrace and an insult to decent Spaniards.

            PSOE will have to swallow hard and do the right thing.  They need power to clean up after PP.  Podemos is the only way that they are going to get that power.  QED.

            Do I think that PSOE and Podemos will pact?  My instinct says no.  And that makes me very sad.  Unfortunately I do not have a vote in the general election in this country, but I am prepared to give my time and effort to help Podemos make a difference.

What do you expect?

Christmas Day – and the cold/sore throat/headache which has been lurking underneath my insistence on good health has chosen today to come to the surface during Day 1 of our annual visit to Terrassa.  Merry bloody day indeed.

            However, such minor inconveniences to enjoyment must not be allowed to interfere with the inexorable progress of Family Entertainment.  The Grand Gathering of the Clans is set for lunchtime and I am hoping that a liberal application of Cava to my internal parts will see me through the experience.

            Christmas Eve, which is when Catalans give presents, was fine with a meal that included my favourite concoction of a salmon, cream cheese, tuna and ham layered bread that goes down a treat – with the previously mentioned Cava.

            The most intriguing of my presents was an ancient looking pot with two spouts and a circular carrying handle on the top.  It was decorated with Catalans dancing and I was informed that it was hand made and of tradition design.  It is of earthenware and the theory is that in some magical way it keeps the water or wine inside cool in spite of the ambient temperature.  As Toni immediately informed me, it will be ideal for the Third Floor and I rather like the idea of drinking water from something that looks like a modified poron.  I realise that the last word of the last sentence may also need some explanation, but there again that is why Google exists!

            I have brought my OU books with me and, perhaps more compellingly my drafts of the poem on which I was working in Castelldefels.  It remains to be see if either of these worthy projects gets a moment of my attention while here!

            The poem is proving to be much more difficult to cope with than the continuing chapters of the OU course books.  In the poem I have an image that I am loath to leave out, but I am not at all convinced by its inclusion at the moment.  It is one of those nice ideas (at least to me) but one which is too strong to stand alone and I am struggling to find a development which will justify its use.  Who was it said that it is sometimes necessary to ‘kill your darlings’ when writing?  Well, this may well be one of those times.  We shall see.

            Terrassa is cold, or rather, colder than Castelldefels.  The sun is shining, the sky is blue and the temperature may well be in double figures, so we can’t really complain.  But one still needs to be fortified to meet the demands of the day and, to my horror, I have discovered that Toni’s mum only has herb and green tea!  Even as I type I am waiting, vainly I fear, for two green tea teabags to give a bit of colour to the minute amount of milk added to the mix.  At the end of this paragraph I will attempt a few sips and hope for the best.

            I did.  And, while not exactly to my taste, there is enough of a suggestion of that smoky Chinese dustiness to the flavour to make me believe that it is a valid taste experience.  There are also, I now discover after further sips, overtones of cut grass.  Ah well, perhaps it is doing something for the list of symptoms that I started the day with.  One can but hope.

            The political situation in Spain continues to defy settlement with some of the Barons of PSOE (the equivalent of the Labour Party) speaking out forcefully against any possible pact with Podemos because of the insistence of the leadership of Podemos of making a referendum on the future of Catalonia within Spain an essential element for any pact agreement.

            I have a fear that the fears of Catalonia breaking away from Spain may well be used as a (cynical) reason for other pacts.  I also fear that if agreement on a government is not made within the statutory period outlined in the Constitution then the ‘Unity of Spain’ banner may well be unfurled by the two major parties to get their lost voters back and we return to a bipartisan political system which has allowed the two major parties to rip off the public purse since the foundation of democracy in this country after the dictatorship of Franco.  Although the placing of what turns out to be far too much power in the hands of the political parties was understandable as a bulwark against the past, there is a real need now for the relationship between politics and modern life in Spain to be redefined.  The present situation is an ideal moment for that to happen, but the giving up of power is never easy and is never voluntary – so the next few months in this country are going to be replete with screams of anguish as power bases are threatened.

            An important, if not key, player in this new and exciting situation is the so-called King of Spain.  After the abdication of his elephant killing, philandering and hypocritical father, the present ‘king’ was installed on the throne by the machinations of PP and PSOE.  There was no provision in the Constitution for abdication and so the two political parties took it upon themselves to invest the new King.  The request (which I fully supported) for a referendum to find out if Spain actually wanted a monarch was ignored by the king-makers and it will be interesting to see what their creation says in the ‘King’s’ Speech today.

           

            Presumably the ‘King’ (who appears to be a perfectly charming and tall man) will aspire to find his moment, just as his father did during the attempted coup by the colonels when he told the soldiers to return to their barracks and accept the young democracy.  The present ‘King’ has the Constitutional duty to call on the winner of the election (PP with 29% of the vote) to form a government.  If Bromo is unable to do that, then the ‘King’ will call on the leader of the opposition to try and form a government.  After three months if no government has been formed then the nuclear option is to call another general election.

            The leader of the C’s (a particularly nasty right-wing party) has called for a Grand Coalition of PP, C’s and PSOE to unite as a front to exclude Podemos (which got more seats and votes than the C’s) to defend the unity of Spain.  In my view, such a grouping would be a disaster of monumental proportions with Old Corruption winning and continuing.

            Meanwhile, life goes on of course, and people are more concerned about family, presents, eating and how to get rid of the kids than Grand Questions about the political state of the country.  That may be a cynical view of mine, and it is certainly true that more people are talking about politics in an urgent and exciting way than they did previously, when they merely shook their heads over the new stories of rapacity that emerged in every television broadcast.  The times have changed and I hope to god that the people of Spain do not throw away an opportunity to make the transition to a new and potentially refreshing political situation.

            By way of contrast (or is it a sort of comment on the situation?) I am re-reading The Portrait of Dorian Gray on my smartphone.  While waiting for my padel lesson I pass the time by reading the lapidary prose of Dear Oscar and relish the exhaustingly bon mot stuffed ‘dialogue’ that his deracinated characters lavish on the intimidated reader.  I must admit I am reading it from the point of view of an English teacher, as I remember that the WJEC once set it as a set text.  It was a choice rather than obligatory, but as I am reading the book I am wondering exactly what teacher would choose such a book and, having chosen it how the hell they would teach it to, say, a mixed class of Cardiff school kids?

            The story itself is simple and the mechanics of the plot are melodramatic and rely on the sort of coincidence than Dickens would have relished – that is easily taught.  But the style and the range of reference is much more difficult to teach in any meaningful way.  Well, such concerns are behind me now and only present themselves as abstract conundrums to be teased at leisure.  That is the sort of luxury of feeling which permeates the whole novel!  I am thoroughly enjoying it!

            And now to prepare myself for the Christmas Meal.  What this means, in effect, is ensuring that my smartphone is fully charged so that I can carry on reading when the opportunity arises!