Nigel Farage certainly triumphed in
the UK's EU elections - far more in fact than he did in the local
elections on the same day - but here in Spain the laurels went to a
one-man party set up only 3 months ago - Podemos ('We can') of
Pablo Iglesias. See here for a profile of a man said to have stunned
the Spanish political establishment by coming fourth and gaining 5
seats in Brussels. What next, one wonders.
Which reminds me . . . If were to ask
you what was the biggest political party in Spain on the eve of the
Civil War in 1936, you might well say the Falange. But this, in fact,
was tiny and the largest party by far was the anarchists. Of whom
there aren't many around these days.
The leader of Spain's
opposition Socialist party, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, has
resigned after the party's failure to win the EU elections. Call me
trivial but it can't have helped that Sr Rubalcaba, though smart, is
not the most telegenic politician on the block.
Is nothing sacred in Spain? Down in
Algeciras, the police have arrested 84 doctors for charging up to €50
for death certificates that should have been free.
Finally . . . The media has it
that Brits - especially retirees - have returned to the Spanish
property market, armed with a strengthening pound and faced with a
glut of cheap properties being offloaded by Spain's biggest estate
agency - the banks. Let's hope this time round more of them take
objective legal advice and don't "leave their brains at the
airport".
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