The government-supporting El Pais has lauded the economic achievements of President Zapatero and said there looks like being a ‘soft landing’ after the end of the construction boom. On the other hand, the OECD has reduced its growth forecast for next year from 3.5% to 2.5%, compared with around 3.7% this year. This is a mighty reduction but it’s certainly not a recession. So maybe there will be less pain that I forecast recently. The Cava will have to be on me.

I’ve written several times about rampant corruption in the construction sector here. And I mentioned yesterday that the international perception of corruption in Spain had recently increased. I don’t suppose things will be helped by the news that the head of the tax authority in the border town of Irún has been sentenced to 5 years in jail for diverting state funds into his bank account. Presumably he ignored the routine official warnings from his bank that strange things were happening in one or more accounts held with them.

There was a survey in one of the local papers yesterday about what most concerns the residents of Galicia’s cities. No single issue garnered anything like the 47% for Traffic and Public Transport which this proportion of Pontevedra folk put at the top of their list. The situation appears to be that all 3 major parties agree on the importance of this problem but each has a different solution. And each accuses the other two of blocking consensus. So, as we have a socialist-nationalist coalition, nothing gets done. Anglo-Saxons believe proportional representation and coalition politics tend towards indecision and weakness. And this would appear to be a case in point. Until one party has absolute control, things presumably won’t get much better. And there’s no sign of that happening this time round.

That said, I’m off to cast my – possibly useless – vote. I won’t, of course, be using the non-existent public transport system to get to the polling station.