If you have a written Constitution, you’ve got to have a Constitutional Court, I guess. Spain certainly has one – or possibly 17 – and there’s controversy in the air at the moment about the extension of its President’s term of office. This has been done, says the Opposition, solely to maintain the Socialist party’s grip on the tribunal so that the controversial new Constitution for Catalunia can sail through on at least a slim majority. This is very possibly true but there’s nothing unusual about governing politicians around the world shaping these courts in their own image and likeness. En passant, I don’t recall reading there were any problems on the Constitution’s way up through the prior Catalunian process. But, then, there wouldn’t be, would there?

The right-of-centre PP party has naturally praised the participants in the anti-government rally which took place in Madrid yesterday, stressing it was calm and dignified. Strangely, the government has criticised the PP for ‘forgetting the victims of 11M [the Madrid train bombings] and of Iraq’. Presumably by concentrating on victims of ETA. They had to say something, of course, but I would have thought they could have come up with a better soundbite than this. Perhaps they take the view that least said, soonest mended.

Incidentally, El Mundo has a video of a woman at the demonstration being manhandled for trying to raise a ‘pre-constitutional’ [presumably Franco era] flag. Politics are rarely boring here – nationally or locally. Or Nationally and nationally, if you like.

Galicia Facts and Perspectives

A month ago I expressed surprise that Nepal had suddenly become the favoured source of babies for Galician couples – or, indeed, singletons – wanting to adopt. Now comes the explanation; the agencies there have been acting illegally. This time, the news really is Nepalling.