Ahead of the big march in Madrid today, one of Spain’s leading Archbishops has suggested that the introduction of gay marriage is just the tip of the iceberg of the state’s assault on the Christian world. It’s all part, he revealed, of the government’s secret plan to destroy Christian civilisation and to eradicate the Catholic Church in Spain. The country’s most senior Archbishop has said the introduction of gay marriage will leave the family totally unprotected. I rather think that, if he took a look at Britain for example, he’d find there are factors far more threatening to the family than that of stable homosexual partnerships. Anyway, in the café copy of the paper in which I read this article, someone had scrawled below the Archbishop’s name ‘Hypocrite. What about the priests who opportune young boys?’. Or words to that effect.

‘Don Manuel’ Fraga’s final appeal to the Galician electorate was that they give him a final term in office in gratitude for everything he’d done for Galicia over the last decade or three. An editorial in El Mundo rightly commented that this was a pathetic argument in a modern democracy and added it was disgraceful that the Galician electorate had to chose between an 82 year-old of limited longevity and a socialist-nationalist coalition of unknown policies. We’ll soon know what fist they make of the challenge of choosing between the devil and the shallow red sea.

Interesting to see the Spanish papers didn’t blame just Britain for the acrimonious collapse of the EU budgetary summit. One paper also pointed the finger at Sweden, Finland and Holland; and another even added Spain to the list, on the grounds that the President has stood firm on his demand for a 4 year delay in the run-down of grants. The most eloquent comment, though, was in the form of a cartoon which showed Captain America knocking an enemy to the floor and Captain Europe punching himself in the face.