The battle for Spain

[Lang Spoon]

I'm sure the Guardian will be spinning similarly if the Nats and Greens win the majority of votes and seats in the Holyrood election.

[Diable Rouge]

The interesting aspect is that Aragones, the ERC leader and would-be Catalan President, wants to include En Comu Podem in the next government both to broaden the scope of the coalition and attempt to achieve maximum consensus for a putative second referendum (third if you count the 2014 attempt).

[Lang Spoon]

They are also a better fit politically for the ERC in terms of actual governing coalition policies than the pijos in convenient centre left clothing/Pujolistas on the quiet in Junts.

[Diable Rouge]

In a shock development, Pablo Iglesias has resigned as leader of Podemos to fight in Madrid regional elections.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Cor lummee. So what's occurring there then?

[Diable Rouge]

Basically, his former Podemos colleague, Errej?n, has a leftist party called M?s Madrid, meaning Podemos were poised to fall below the electoral threshold. Also, Cs are falling apart in the region, with many of their representatives joining PP, who look set to form an official coalition with Vox in the capital's regional assembly.

[Diable Rouge]

In the regional government of Murcia, PP has offered the Ministry of Education to an MP who is technically independent, but has only just resigned from Vox, which sets the template and suggests further at national level.

[Lang Spoon]

Dirty Scum.

[Sporting]

This article focuses on Barcelona but the same thing happens where I live:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-d...crap-recyclers

"V?ctor Mitjans, a recycling expert employed by the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, says: “The informal collectors are exploited by scrap merchants who, knowing these people are ‘illegal’, offer a price and it’s a case of take it or leave it.”

The waste belongs to the city, so collecting it is technically theft. “The city isn’t going to prosecute these people and most are prepared to turn a blind eye to their activities,” he says."

There's one of these scrap merchants near us. There's activity there all day.

[Sporting]

Fascists still present here;

https://english.elpais.com/politics/...candidate.html

"A pre-election debate held at the Cadena SER radio network descended into chaos on Friday morning, with the Unidas Podemos candidate for the upcoming Madrid regional polls, Pablo Iglesias, walking out of the studio almost as soon as the program had begun. The left-wing politician, who recently left his role as deputy prime minister in the national government to contest the May 4 elections, opted to leave given the refusal of far-right Vox candidate Roc?o Monasterio to retract doubts she had expressed over whether death threats he had received were genuine.

...

The rest of the discussion, however, continued to be dominated by Monasterio’s tone and interruptions. At one point, for example, she called on M?s Madrid’s M?nica Garc?a to “wipe the sourpuss look” off her face. Garc?a responded irately: “You are an accumulation of a lack of respect and manners!”

[Discordant Resonance]

And now Iglesias has quit politics altogether, after Podemos only came third among the various left parties, and the PP almost secured a majority in the Madrid regional election:

PP 65 (+35)
M?s Madrid 24 (+4)
PSOE 24 (-13)
Vox 13 (+1)
Podemos 10 (+3)
Cs 0 (-26)

The discrepancy is due to the enlargement of the regional parliament. All in all, a disastrous result for the left, which appears hopelessly divided, and hard to see how it combats the simplistic nationalism of the right when it can hardly sort out its own messaging.

[Sporting]

Ayuso won because she used the popularist cry of "freedom" and kept open bars and restaurants (and guess where Covid cases are highest?)

A recent poll in the Valencia region showed increased support for `PSOE, and here restrictions have been much stiffer.

https://valenciaplaza.com/un-sondeo-...tat-valenciana

[Sporting]

I'm not sure the bad left wing results can be entirely put down to party differences given that the PR system in Madrid is pretty fair. But the messaging was dilutrd, it's true, especially with Mas Madrid and Podemos sharing almost the exact same policies...

Finally, though, the voters have voted in a regional party which is to the right of the national party, which could have dire consequences.

[Discordant Resonance]

In which the author resorts to outdated, disproven stereotypes to make the case for Franco.

[Sporting]

Which author?

[ursus arctos]

Some numpty named Gerald Warner

[Nefertiti2]

Enthusiastically retweeted by a Times Journalist -

[/https://twitter.com/cymrurouge/status/1420461657638293507?s=20

not bonus points for references to Orwell


Orwell went to Spain to fight Franco you cunts.

[ursus arctos]

I guess that they feel that the field for Anglophone Lost Cause propagandists is too crowded

[Discordant Resonance]

A bad night for the Spanish left in Castilla y León:

[DCI Harry Batt]

Isn't the overall "left" vote up, there?

[Discordant Resonance]

That's a technicality, as Podemos ran with the green party Equo in 2019, winning 7% of the vote and 2 seats. Because they ran on their own this time, they are thus recorded as a "new" party.

[DCI Harry Batt]

So parties that ran last time but not this aren't shown? That's unhelpful.

[ursus arctos]

The others all are, but Equo are not.

Which means that the 2019 table doesn't correspond with the allocation of seats in the hemicycle graphic (as those 2 are missing from the former).

It is dumb.

[DCI Harry Batt]

There aren't any parties shown that ran last time but not this.

[ursus arctos]

Equo are listed in the 2019 allocation of seats for the hemicycle graphic