As noted, both the government and the opposition are fervent supporters of the EU constitution. An editorial in El Mundo today asked why, if they could join forces to promote/defend Europe, they couldn’t do the same for Spain. This, of course, is a reference to the Basque secessionist plans, which are en route to a local referendum. Both parties regard this as illegal but the opposition is demanding a tougher response than that apparently favoured by the President, Mr ‘Bambi’ Zapatero. The problem for Mr Z is that [ignoring Islamic terrorists] he was brought to power by a coalition involving the (less extreme) nationalist parties of both the Basque Country and Catalunia. So he needs to tread carefully.

Meanwhile, the Wall St. Journal has suggested that Bambi needs to get his act together if he is not to preside over the Balkanisation of Spain. They fear this would have parlous consequences for Europe as a whole. Which makes it all the more strange that no mention of these events appears to have made it into the British heavyweight press.

Sky TV today showed us David Beckham answering a press conference question in Spanish that was even more execrable than his English. This was bad enough but I could hardly contain myself when Sky praised it at ‘creditworthy’. Suffice to say it was so bad that Spanish TV had to put subtitles below him.