Spanish Shilling

Oddly, not everyone is happy with the choice from the five members of ‘den norske Nobelkomité’ for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. As you must already know, it went to the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado "for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy".

She’s the current thorn in Nicolas Maduro’s hide. She’s popular, supported by many foreign powers as the energy behind Venezuela’s slightly ridiculous candidate for president, the doddery Edmundo González (now living in some considerable comfort in Madrid), and she lives in fear of being arrested by Maduro’s thugs.

The Magats and their leader Donald Trump are of course furious that the prize wasn’t awarded to humankind’s finest example – after all, he has resolved a dozen wars already.

On Friday, following the announcement, the White House blasted the Nobel Committee for not awarding the Peace Prize to Trump (says the BBC), noting that ‘…Trump has been outspoken about his desire for the award, taking credit for ending several global conflicts. He regularly brought it up, including during his address to the UN General Assembly in September’.

I think many of us would have blown a fuse if Donald Trump had of been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (even if it might balance the choice of Barack Obama back in 2009).

Even odder than Trump’s rage at being thus slighted, we also heard from Politico that ‘Donald Trump deserved the Nobel prize, says Vladimir Putin.' (Yikes!). '...The Russian president insisted that the Nobel committee has lost credibility’. 

Thanks for that mate, says Donald: ‘The US President expressed his gratitude to Putin for his recent public support for his Nobel Peace Prize bid’.

That’s right, you couldn’t make it up.

Indeed, here’s María on Friday (she knows on which side of her toast has the butter) on accepting the honour: “I dedicate my Nobel Prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!”.

María Corina Machado may be a popular choice, but she is also something of a handful. A Vox video on YouTube has her speaking – via video-link – to a recent meeting of the Patriots for Europe in Madrid:

"Dear presidents, dear Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox and organizer of Europa Viva, dear friends of freedom. From Venezuela I want to send my warmest greetings to each one of you, our great friends from Vox and Patriots for Europe…”

Personally, I’ll take vanilla.

Some other candidates who lost out to María include Francesca Albanese, plus Elon Musk, Donald Trump and some other luminaries who haven’t made it onto my radar.

Two candidates missing from the official list were the magnificent Greta Thunberg and Spain’s Pedro Sánchez. Either one would have been a better choice.

Co-ownership is becoming quite the thing these days, and it all works beautifully if you get along with everyone and no one pulls out or dies and leaves his share to a cousin. Indeed, if one of the co-owners does pass away, their share of the property goes to their heirs, who become the new co-owners or "co-heirs," requiring a legal process to define and adjudicate the inheritance.

Let us look at the case of several children inheriting a single property – to be divided up peacefully, but then in time, maybe the children of the children become involved. It’s a mess. Should you buy a property with, as it were, a bit missing (now owned by a cousin who lives in Argentina)? Certainly not. Google AI says: ‘A property with multiple owners is legally known as ‘un proindiviso’, a joint ownership or co-ownership, where the property is not physically divided, but rather each owner has a share or percentage of the entire property without a specific, delimited portion. This situation commonly occurs after an inheritance or a joint purchase. To sell, modify, or enjoy the property, the agreement of all co-owners is generally required, although any co-owner can request the division of the property’.

Many years ago, I was living with a girlfriend in a large house (with three kitchens) divided into five shares by the grandfather. For some reason, we had two fifths. When the old auntie died (she lived upstairs), my companion became the owner of another chunk of the house: closing off a door, and with an outside staircase, it became a rental. This after the old girl had failed to leave a will, and the other relatives (about twenty of them showed up for a meeting) had agreed to waive their share of the three rooms in question.

A fourth fifth belongs to some company, and they had never used or claimed it. We knocked a hole through the wall and occupied it as an office.

The fifth fifth, that’s to say, the remaining bit, belonged to a cousin who rented it out to African field workers.

A house like that is largely unsaleable, unless my friend were to previously buy the cousin out (no doubt he would be after a sizeable chunk of money) – and probably ratify the two rooms she took from the company who had ignored them ever since they were sold (along with a piece of land) by another cousin some forty years previously.

No doubt the abogados could help.

So, the lesson here is – don’t buy a house with various owners – even if one of them ‘never shows up’. If you inherit a property, or rather part of one, then maybe insure it heavily against a surprise fire.

I used to know an English poet (and his elderly mother) who would spend a few months each year in Bédar (a charming village in Almería) endlessly searching for something that rhymed with ‘orange’ (or for that matter, naranja). They had a gypsy family living in the same small and rather cramped house – since they owned a share. Rather a large gypsy family as I remember.

Unsurprisingly, they didn’t have much in common with John and his mum, although they would all enjoy an occasional evening with John’s guitar.

In answer to all of this, I was intrigued to find an advertisement from some outfit that can solve your co-ownership problems by buying you out. They say: ‘Not owning a home in its entirety is difficult, but being able to sell your portion doesn't have to be. Find speed and security with a company that buys your share’ (I’ve got their address if you’re interested). One can only imagine how they turn a profit.

As for getting rid of the Argentinian co-owner (and his seven children), perhaps it’s for the best to hope that he never shows up. If you still want to buy, then – says the always helpful Google AI – ‘to purchase a property with multiple owners (a joint ownership), you must obtain the consent of all co-owners for the sale, sign the purchase agreement with all of them, or have one co-owner sell their share to another owner, and process the purchase through a public deed before a notary…’. Good luck with that. If on the other hand, you are thinking of just buying one share, or maybe winning it at cards, then I would say you need to think again…

Divorce, inheritance, another usufruct co-owner, a fellow with bagpipes and dibs on the bathroom… all these and other reasons make a quiet and enchanting little house in a forgotten pueblo – or maybe a flat off La Gran Vía – an utterly hopeless proposition.

Huh! We didn’t even get to time-share…

There are certain subjects which are based on cast-iron certainties which through experience, prejudice and tribalism, leave us convinced of the integrity of our own opinion. Belief in a flat-earth is a good example of this – as is anything to do with politics.

Is Begoña Gómez, the wife of Pedro Sánchez guilty of some wrongdoing, yea or nay? Well, you know, everyone in Spain has already decided.

As to what she may have done, or law she might have broken… Nobody can answer that, but anyway: ‘to the guillotine with her’!

Despite any evidence after 18 months of looking under stones, Judge Peinado has failed to uncover anything, but give him his due, he will keep on gamely searching until Sánchez is out of office and the whole exercise will lose its purpose.

I mean, there must be something. None of us is perfect. I once stole a chocolate bar from Woolworths (come to think of it, perhaps that’s why they went broke).

The original complaint came from Manos Limpias, an association of unrepentant Francoists that are rarely taken seriously by anyone placed anywhere to the left of Atila the Hun. ‘With more than 6,000 members, Manos Limpias does not submit accounts or hold the meetings required by its by-laws. Furthermore, it has no representation in any workplace, and its representation in the civil service is unknown…’ Them.

Early last year, Manos Limpias had handed in a wad of press-cuttings from outfits like OKDiario and El Debate suggesting that Begoña was a bad ’un. One particular complaint, about obtaining a credit under false pretences, turned out to have been a woman from Cantabria with the same name. Manos Limpias by the way was the group that complained about the Infanta Cristina (she was later absolved) and let’s see, ‘… They are known for appearing as accusers in high-profile political court cases. Although most of them never come to fruition’.  By accident (or design), their complaint against Begoña fell into the hands of Judge Juan Carlos Peinado – of whom Gabriel Rufián said last week ‘Everyone knows who he works for’ – that’s to say, the conservatives (his daughter is a PP politician). ‘Since that first complaint, almost a year and a half ago, this investigation has grown relentlessly. Nothing has been closed, even though Peinado's accusatory theories are failing due to a lack of evidence. The case has grown with more alleged crimes, each one more difficult to justify…’

There are better than 9,000 pages compiled in 19 volumes, four people under investigation, and more than thirty witnesses questioned, including Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, his Minister of Justice Félix Bolaños, and several Ibex company presidents. These are the key figures in the case that Peinado has been pursuing for almost eighteen months against Begoña Gómez. We read that ‘Peinado sends Begoña Gómez to trial with a ruling lacking evidence of any crime’.

Last Wednesday, he told her that if she finally faces trial for a charge of embezzlement attributed to her for the work performed by her assistant, ‘a jury will determine her guilt’.

Juries in Spain are nine people ‘chosen by chance’.

As we saw above, everyone these days has made up their mind about their politics and nothing, certainly not any essay of mine, will persuade them differently – and we also know that the jury will be composed of people from Madrid, where at least 55% are conservative voters. Does anyone believe that a jury chosen from among Madrid residents to judge Pedro Sánchez's wife would not be tainted? Faced with such a controversial and politicized issue, which occupies hours and hours on every radio and television channel, are there any citizens left who don't already have a preconceived opinion?

So, what is this all about?

Embarrassing Pedro Sánchez for as long as possible, with his wife, his brother (another Manos Limpias case without merit) and his Attorney General (yet another one). We can’t catch him for his economic policies – Spain is getting full approval from the credit agencies – but we can wear him down and open the door to the prospect of an undoubtedly inept future PP/Vox combination.

A case like this, says the Google AI, can take about ten months before the jurors (and the reporters) arrive. What if she loses (La Cope, the bishops’ radio, kindly reckons her chances of losing the case stand at 92.8%)? One newspaper, the ABC, says she could get between two and six years of prison, although ‘the crime of embezzlement (Peinado’s current accusation), can only be attributed in principle to a public official (un funcionario): a condition that Gómez does not hold’.

Would Pedro Sánchez then have to quit?

Probably.

But I’m just venting here – Begoña shouldn’t think of this as ‘lawfare’, more as an historic example of the vengeful masses clamouring for her husband’s head.

I’ve always been a big fan of the United States of America. I’ve spent a total of at least three years there during my life so far and have been to 45 of the 50 states (the remaining ones are too cold, too small or too hard to reach).

Plus three months in Washington DC, which for some reason is its own territory.

I was married to a fine woman from California whose parents, like mine, settled in Spain in the sixties, and we had thirty years together before she died. We have three children – two of whom are now living in the American mid-west (the third one stayed home here in España).

I was brought up (until I was thirteen) in Norfolk UK, near an American airbase. My parents were friendly with some of the officers, and I would be gifted (sic) lots of comic books (I was one of the earliest British fans of Batman, Superman and Casper the Friendly Ghost). Then came books (with writers like Jack Schaefer, Zane Grey and O. Henry), finger paints and Hershey Bars.

From the age of nine onwards, I knew that I wanted to spend as much time as I could in America. Those cars!

Studying in Seville when I was seventeen, I took college entrance exams, and was all ready to go, when some friends of my parents warned them (erroneously, I’m sure) that I would end up in Vietnam being shot at by fellows wearing black pyjamas.

I finally crossed ‘el charco’ when I was 22, arriving in Florida to stay with the Franzen boys in Pompano Beach – a place with no pavements, bad colour television, beautiful girls and amazing cocktails. Gayne and Ted’s parents were neighbours of my family in Spain. I remember to this day consuming my first Whopper.

I love the opportunity that the USA has, plus the enormous and sparsely populated hinterland. My two kids live in a state that is 40% larger than the whole of Spain.

I’m a huge fan of American culture: its writers, musicians and artists who have brought so much pleasure to the world. 

Nowadays, I tend to go every November and visit the grandchildren, the local Wal-Mart and the breathtaking countryside (when I can afford to) and to eat the Thanksgiving turkey, but I shan’t be going this year. 

Sadly, the USA that I know and love is undergoing a Once in a Hundred Year collapse (think the October Revolution or Brexit) thanks to the insidious MAGA philosophy. I can put up (more or less) with the guns and the iced tea, but Donald Trump’s second term, surrounded as he is this time with people who are evidently even thicker and nastier that him (mostly fished from the water treatment plant of Fox News) is for me a step too far.

There’s Pete Hegseth with his alarming Christian tattoos and his alleged love for a bottle of scotch who runs the reassuringly renamed ‘Department of War’. The worm-brained Robert Kennedy: the ludicrous secretary of health who doesn’t believe (‘believe’!) in vaccinations. The top two officials at the FBI, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, who have no previous experience at the law enforcement agency. The eccentric Christian extremist Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel… and so on: a plethora of inept and dangerous appointed. Then there’re the current purges against ‘the radical left’ Democrat party – a damp and strangely feeble group that could kindly be described in European terms as centre-right. The late Charlie Kirk said of them: ‘the Dems believe everything that God hates’.

Such a young country run by such old-fashioned conservative values!

Of course, I can still visit the USA (after all, I’m tall and pink and have a nice anglo-sounding name, plus I’m too old to be much of a nuisance anyway). Just remember not to say anything silly and make a point of glaring sternly at anyone who looks even slightly Latin.  

Anyway, I’ve decided – I’ll be staying home this year. I wish to avoid the threat of ending up in Alligator Alley or Guantánamo.

I'm told I'm not the only person who thinks like this.

On the bedside table, I’ve got Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath to re-read.

I’m pretty sure that I will manage just fine without a Hershey Bar.

Two points: there are a lot of people searching for a home – either to rent or to buy. Also, despite the apparent lack of available properties, Spain has more than 3.5 million vacant homes, representing some 14% of the total housing stock. Around half of these homes are in those smaller municipalities with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants.

I once shared an apartment in Seville with four other students, me and a British school-friend in bunks in what must have been a converted bathroom, with white tiles on the wall. The other three were studying at the university and came from Montefrío in Granada. The next term, I shared a three-bedroom 8,000 peseta apartment with two students.

It’s fine when you are young and running around the city all night - but not when that single room (share the kitchen and bathroom) costs 1,000€ a month as, increasingly, it does now. 

We look at the problems of the renters and the buyers – but part of the whole must be the sellers, the landlords and the owners: having a property portfolio is good business.

This is partly why, following the Covid when we all worked from home (often in a charming village two hours away from the city), they wanted us to return to the office: taxes, office blocks, investors and city politics. My old mate Cheap Pete once told me (with his New Jersey accent) – for a million dollars you can buy a giant property in North Dacota or a parking lot in Washington DC. You might wait a whole year to sell that beautiful mountain, or less than a day to sell the city plot.

Which one was the better investment? Evidently, the second choice, but only if there’s a demand.

No wonder the property barons want to see a certain scarcity – prices (and profits) must go up. In Madrid, some old factories and warehouses, shops and abandoned outlets are now being switched to residential homes, or maybe into single 1,000€ rooms with ‘coliving’ . There’s the exciting advantage of city life, interesting flatmates and maybe a downstairs eatery, if your wallet can still manage the menu del día.

I live in a village on the coast. There’s a giant abandoned hotel taking up a chunk of the local infrastructure. It was closed in 2008 and now belongs, for some reason, to the Madrid regional government. It could become fifty apartments. In the back of the next-door port of Garrucha, there’s a large unfinished block of flats, rotting in the sun and covered in graffiti. That’s another fifty potential homes. The scarcity then, is in the city – although there are still a number of empty residences even close to the Puerta del Sol.

Many of those who live in the city came from elsewhere, and they may still own a place in the country, a casa del pueblo they’ll visit during the summer or the local fiesta – maybe to show off their success, or perhaps just to take it easy for a while and share a noisy lunch with the cousin who stayed behind. Other people who own a couple of houses might leave one empty. One day the children will live there. Others still will rent, or sell, or turn it into an Airbnb, put a funny lock on the door, and create a cleaning job for Encarnación.

Digital nomads (doesn’t that sound fun?) will rent for a while, working from their laptop, while idly planning their next move to Khartoum or Bucharest. Foreigners will buy the house, and maybe the one next door, and try and put in a swimming pool. Others still will take the week-end option and then leave a cigarette burn in the mattress.

Maybe put in a security system (like it says on the telly) to defy the okupas.

Then there are the millions – apparently – of people who want to rent somewhere half decent for a little bit less than their entire salary, eating rusks and asking their parents for a few extra euros (until either the wage or the rent, whichever one comes first, is raised by a fraction). The Government talks of making (or building) more cheap homes or closing down illegal rentals, or helping the under-thirties buy a house in the smaller towns. Some local governments are considering forcing the sale of empty homes.

After all, the Spanish Constitution Article 47 gives us all the right to una vivienda decente.

The influencers in their YouTube videos meanwhile are talking about investing in their wares (from their bases in low-tax Andorra), and one day soon, you too will be able to afford to buy and rent out houses like the best robber landlords.

Gloomily, we read: Spain’s record housing market is far from peaking – ‘prices will reach unprecedented levels’. Hey, the higher the price, the happier the owner.

Maybe the foreign Vulture Funds will come and pick up another entire city block: they are here for the opportunities.

A left-wing politician sums up the problem: “People with money in this country invest in gold, the stock market, and real estate”. They buy in the city (Cheap Pete’s parking lot) or on the coast, leaving many thousands of Spanish municipalities by the wayside.

El País has a story about a thirty-year-old who has finally given up on Madrid and moved to the town of Ponferrada – in search of a quieter life, escaping job insecurity and housing prices. “Life moves on and priorities change,” he says blithely.

Then there any many people living in extreme poverty, or in shacks or under bridges. Local guiri Richard Gere may have the answer – he says in a TV interview that "My wife and I have set a goal to end homelessness in Spain within six years". I think that this may prove to be a larger challenge than he imagines. Caritas puts the number of the dispossessed at 37,000.

In all, there are 48 million people living in Spain and 27 million homes – which works out at a house for every 1.8 persons. That’s not so bad…

....

Some of these stories end up as editorials in my Business over Tapas briefing about Spain (no adverts, no fluff and no Leapy Lee). Find them here. 

A friend from Germany has been staying with me, and on Wednesday, along with my daughter and her husband, we drove up to Granada.

It’s just a couple of hours away, and it is without doubt Spain’s greatest city.

I’ve been many times over the years, but my son-in-law was born and raised there and knows all the oddest and most scenic spots – to say nothing of the best eateries and bars.

We started at a likely looking caff next to the Airbnb apartments we had reserved just off the city hall square. In many places in Granada, a drink comes with a tapa, but it will be something chosen by the house. We had three drinks (it’s thirsty work driving to Granada) and they came out with three plates – and if someone at the table doesn’t like baby octopus, then it’s all the more for me. 

In the evening, we wandered down towards the river to admire a couple of fountains (my son-in-law assured me that, as a child, he had fallen into both of them on several occasions). Then, crossing vaguely south over the Río Geníl, we arrived at an outdoor café called ‘La Cuchara de Carmela (¿Donde mejor que aquí?)’, which again decided what tapas we would be treated to. They also had a menu so we could add some more dishes to stand in for dinner.

We have all seen the sites over the years, gone to the flamenco shows in the Sacromonte and been approached by beggars outside the cathedral; indeed the first time I was in the Patio de los Leones in the Alhambra Palace, I was sixteen. I’ve even got the photo somewhere…

So, limited site-seeing this time, and maybe just a selfie or two.

There comes a time, after a few glasses of wine and a belly-full of food, when one must wander on to look for a jolly late-night joint for a schnapps or, um, a tequila!

We went to find an old mate called Sebastian, who used to run a place in Mojácar but has now moved to adventures new in the city. Seba, wearing a tatty-looking Mexican hat, greeted us with every sign of affection in his tiny bar, the Reina Linda. Margaritas and tacos ¡por favor!

The students are now returning to Granada, a university city, and the scruffy, cheaper places like this one do a good trade in the season. There’s nothing – I think you will agree – like writing your thesis or studying those heavy medical books armed with a pencil and a cocktail.

The next morning, we dropped by to see the parents – mis consuegros – of my son in law. This time, in a residential and passingly more modern part of the city (there were plenty of blocks of apartments in the barrio with the arrows and yoke featured on the walls – that’s to say, built during the Franco years).

I’ll leave the parents in peace, save to note that the first bar, where we met the old dad, was the tiniest bar I have ever seen, crammed only with men, and with the shortest barman in the world. In fact, one had to lean over the counter to be sure that he was there at all. 

Again, the tapas chosen by the kitchen were delicious.

And now, we are back in Mojácar, and my friend will soon be flying back to Germany for a few weeks before she returns.

Perhaps we shall do Córdoba then.

The terrible fires that have burned some 400,000 hectares (about 1,550 square miles) are now extinguished thanks to some sterling work by the firefighters, with help from other regions and even other European countries. Bravo! Fierce rain also made a welcome but slightly late arrival in the north over the weekend.

Bringing the danger home to my corner of Spain, our nearby municipality of Lubrín (Almería) lit up the sky on Thursday last week as 400 hectares burned in a scrub fire.

We saw those large yellow water-planes repeatedly flying over us to load in the Garrucha harbour. All very scary.

Fire-prevention is the key lesson to be learned. In other times, the country-folk would clean out the mountains (if nothing else, at least for firewood). Goat-herders and hunters would be present, helping in their different ways.

Now everyone has moved to the cities: better jobs, more nightlife and a Corte Inglés for that shopping thrill. A quote from a more substantial organ than my humble newsletter: ‘…the exodus of farmworkers to cities in recent decades "has created vast areas of flammable scrub on abandoned land"’.

The PP leader Feijóo feels that the answer to the fires in Spain lies in putting ankle-bracelets on every person that would feature on a proposed list of registered arsonists. The more likely cause, global warming, is still a step too far for conservatives (a bit like the school shootings in America: it’s pretty damn obviously the availability of guns and not the video games). From El Mundo, we read that a proposed deal by Sánchez to form a united front against national disasters has flown too close to the sun: ‘The PSOE and the PP dismiss the possibility of a State Pact on climate change to prevent wildfires. Sánchez's party accuses the Partido Popular of "institutional disloyalty," while Feijóo's party criticizes the government for using the "wild card" of climate change to "evade responsibility"’.

How anything and everything in Spain is political; and Feijóo’s only driving interest is to somehow make it to the top before he is defenestrated by those bunching up behind him (Ayuso, Moreno, maybe Mañueco and others). 

The larger fires occurred in three regions – all controlled by the PP. These were Castilla y León, Galicia and Extremadura. Apparently, during the winter season, none of their agents managed to participate in the Government’s working group to define the inventory of firefighting resources, nor did they attend any of the eight meetings with Civil Protection last year, where the number of available resources must be detailed for coordination of their use in emergencies’.  The idea was – let the central government handle it, until the first fire roared into life.  

So now, as the political season returns, the usual angry (and largely pointless) fighting will return to the Spanish parliament.

In the hope that the building’s fire extinguishers have been checked.

My Godfather Andrew Fountaine was an interesting man. He lived in a giant house (in Spain, it would be called un palacio) in the middle of the Norfolk countryside called Narford Hall. It had 52 bedrooms and a private chapel reserved for Henry VIII (when he happened to be in the neighbourhood). Andrew was known locally as being bitterly against fox hunting, and he would empty a shotgun in the general direction of anyone he saw on his estate wearing red and riding a horse. After the War, Andrew – something of a Mosleyite – went into politics but ‘…exiled from the Conservative Party prior to the 1950 general election, Fountaine, standing for a new party, the National Front, fell just 361 votes short of being returned to Westminster. He would remain a prime mover in the NF cause throughout the 1960s and ’70s – ‘the movement’s moneybags to a large degree’ – losing more elections along the way…’

He wasn’t much of a godfather, truth to say. I don’t think he ever passed me a single cheque drawn on Coutts.

There’s a ringing quote from Andrew in the 1948 Conservative conference where he denounced the Labour Party as consisting of "semi-alien mongrels and hermaphrodite communists".

He told my mother (she was a cousin of his) that his party didn’t need or want the usual suspects – Blacks, Homosexuals, Jews (although they seem to favour Israel in these interesting times), Women (their place is in the home), Intellectuals (always asking difficult questions) and any Aristocrats (present company excluded). No, he said, we want the down-trodden, the poorly educated, the fearful and the (beery) flag-wavers.

A generation or two later, the British have Brexit, Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson.

These days, here in Spain, the equivalent to this collection of extremists is the Vox party and their leader Santiago Abascal (he often dresses up in military outfits, presumably for the sake of it). He and many of his circle came from the Spanish conservative party, the PP.

I was having dinner the other night with a conservative friend with ties to the Establishment in Madrid, and he says that the apparent 15% approval that Vox enjoys is in fact badly understated; in fact, the latest poll finds them with 19% favour. Since then, they’ve squabbled with the Catholic Church and been found to have received a second tranche of money from a Hungarian bank.

Across Europe we have these hate groups, politically linked in every way except for the detail on the flag, while being strongly supported and financed by the Russians and their allies. In England, there’s currently an (embarrassing) George Cross flag-waving anti-immigrant campaign. Here we have the Vox politicians attempting to disallow Muslim prayer meetings.

If you see someone with a Spanish flag wristband, that’ll be a Voxxer, so don’t ask them about Franco. It also leads the question – can you have a national flag without being a Nationalist? Unless it’s the season of the World Cup, then evidently not.

Social Media has been kind to Vox (extreme posts often attract more attention that the softer ones, as Donald Trump would tell you), while several eccentric groups such as Abogados Cristianos, Hazte Oir and Manos Limpias have all helped to put a spoke in the lefty government’s wheels, and then there are several news outlets which are heavily subsidised by the far-right who print what they’re told – OKDiario, The Objective and EDATV being examples...

It may be too soon to fear a Vox government, but they would likely enter through the back door in an alliance with the Partido Popular (the party under Feijóo’s control could never earn a majority). Expect lots of flags.

Perhaps I’ll be able to dine out with my Andrew Fountaine stories.

The PP and Vox: a likely case of the tail wagging the dog.

I was looking at my cell phone on Saturday, and it said: ‘Higher temperature is expected tomorrow’. I looked again and it said 40ºC. Forty degrees is higher than my blood temperature. Then it added, lows of 28ºC during the night. Sticky!

Mojácar where I live is said to have an agreeable microclimate. It’s not as hot as much of Spain in the summer, and it never snows here in the winter.

We had one bad fire back in 2009, which burned a couple of thousand hectares between Mojácar and next-door Turre, including my old farmhouse (the house survived but all the trees and garden went, and I had the terrible experience of seeing little birds flying and abruptly turning into puffs of flame).

The fire comes so fast, so fast, that people can get caught and they can die. That day, the police drove by with a megaphone – ‘Get out now!’ We grabbed the dog, and we drove down into the rambla, the dry riverbed.

People don’t forget a bad fire: the fear and doubts will remain long afterwards.

Right now, many thousands of people are experiencing this (and much worse). There are huge fires burning across the north-west of Spain in particular. On Wednesday, the afternoon TV news said 400,000 hectares have so far been burnt this year (as against 47,000Ha in all of 2024), particularly in Galicia, Castilla y León, Extremadura and Asturias. Just Galicia alone has already overcome the terrible wave of fires in 2017: by Monday morning, the blaze had already devoured 63,000 hectares there. To combat the flames, the Government has maintained a large deployment of more than 3,400 soldiers and 450 resources, which have been joined, among others, by air resources and BRIF helicopter-borne brigades of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition, with 600 personnel, and more than 5,000 Guardia Civiles and 350 National Police officers. Furthermore, Pedro Sánchez pledged on Sunday to forge a ‘national pact’ to confront the climate crisis during a visit to the wildfire-ravaged region of Galicia.

Spain is now in its third consecutive week of heat alerts, with fires still burning in the northwest and western provinces. Military units remain on the ground to support exhausted fire crews, while France and Italy have dispatched water-dropping aircraft to an air base near Salamanca (Castilla y León) to aid the response. On Monday, we read that ‘Spain accepts help from several European countries to help tackle the nineteen active forest fires ravaging the country. Firefighting reinforcements from Germany, Slovakia and the Netherlands will be added to those already provided by Italy and France’.

Even so, we read of ‘dangerous and uncontrolled fires’, with not enough help, or maybe none at all. A UME (army) captain acknowledges the lack of resources to fight the fires: "We are under terrible pressure", he says.

Fires will eventually die down, as the fire-fighters gain control, or simply as the wind turns, or even when there’s nothing left to burn. But until then, there is devastation, loss of life, loss of animals, homes and businesses. Over the weekend, there were reports of major fires with far too little help as the services were badly stretched, and of villagers being told to wear wet face-masks and to stay in their homes.

We read of global warming, and we worry if things will get even worse next summer. But whether one considers this as probable, or as a story cooked up by doomsayers, various hoaxes (bulos) can be found everywhere, from irresponsible news-outlets to social media. The main ones are: ‘There is an organized criminal network operating behind the fires’ (if intentional, they will come from simple acts of arson).

‘They want to reclassify the burned lands thanks to the reform of the Forestry Law’ (burned areas may not be rezoned as urban for 20 years).

‘Penalties must be increased to stop the fires’ (currently, you can get up to 20 years in prison, but only 9% of firebugs are apprehended).

‘Arsonists are primarily responsible’ (under 10% of fires are wilful).

‘The fires are intentional; climate change has nothing to do with it’ (hot summers dry out the undergrowth).

‘Protected areas burn more than other areas left to nature’ (This depends on where the fire starts, not where it ends up).

One way or another, it will take decades to repair the burnt forests – and perhaps some of the villages and homes and stables will be gone forever.

So, whose job is it to finance the fire-stations, pay for the airplanes and send out the firefighters? The answer (and the politics) is that it falls on the regional governments. ‘It is often pointed out that summer fires are avoided in winter, when clean-up and preparation activities are carried out to hinder the easy spread of fires’. Short of a national emergency.

And thus, we come to the politics.

‘…The outcry comes after Feijóo accused Sánchez of not having activated "vigilance in Spain's forests and mountains" in time before the risk season began. He also blamed him for the fires that began ravaging Andalucía, Castilla and León, Galicia, and Madrid (all PP fiefdoms)’. Público quotes Pablo Fernández (Podemos) who says ‘The PP is only clear about the regional powers to lower taxes for the wealthy, and to privatize public services. In the other areas, it tries to pass the buck, as is the case with forest fire prevention and extinction, which falls under the jurisdiction of the regional governments’. Another source agrees – ‘From extreme denialism to cuts in fire prevention: the political debate on the climate emergency’. One report tells of how a bulldozer was moved 17 kilometres from its fire extinguishing job to become the backdrop to a speech from Feijóo and the regional president for Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, in Palacios del Sil (León). The vecinos were understandably not amused.  

Firefighters are often poorly paid, or have temporary jobs, or (as in Madrid) are on strike (they’ve agreed to return to work until the emergency is over)…

And still Spain (and next door Portugal) burns.

In Jumilla (Murcia) – a town 110kms north of Torre Pacheco (wiki) – a ban on religious gatherings in public sports centres has sparked criticism and accusations of Islamophobia. The ban, initially proposed by the far-right Vox party, was recently approved by the coalition (PP/Vox) in the Jumilla town hall. This decision affects the local Muslim community, who traditionally use the sports centres for religious celebrations. The ban is seen as a violation of the Spanish constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion and worship (Google IA). The Guardian here says: ‘Outrage as Spanish town bans Muslim religious festivals from public spaces’.

Antena3 has: ‘The Muslim community's indignation at the ban in Jumilla: "It's very dangerous here’". The city council of this Murcian town has decided to prohibit its Muslim residents from celebrating festivals such as the End of Ramadan or the Feast of the Lamb in the municipal sports centre’.

‘Feijóo's PP avoids questioning the termination of the Islamic events it approved in Jumilla: "It is unacceptable that we are being presented as a xenophobic party"’. elDiario.es here.

The Partido Popular stands alone in its anti-Muslim crusade: neither the Church nor the right-wing media support Génova (PP headquarters in Madrid). From the Episcopal Conference (the Catholic authority in España) to media outlets aligned with Génova, they have turned their backs on the PP's argument regarding the controversy concentrated in Jumilla. El Plural here.

‘Vox leader Santiago Abascal calls for "protection" of public spaces against "practices alien to Spanish culture" and demands a ban on the veil’, says 20Minutos here. 

From El País here (with video): ‘Abascal attacks the bishops over Jumilla: "I don't know if their position is due to the public revenue they receive or the cases of paedophilia." The Vox leader responds to the Episcopal Conference's statement in support of the Muslim community with an unprecedented criticism of "part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy"’.

From Información here: Santiago Abascal's obsession with Al-Andalus and hatred as a profitable electoral weapon. This is how Vox deploys the far-right playbook that has been so successful in many European democracies’.

‘The Prosecutor's Office opens proceedings for alleged hate crimes against the leader of Vox in Murcia. It has opened a pre-trial investigation against José Ángel Antelo for the statements he made during a public appearance on July 12, 2025, in Cartagena, regarding the violent incidents that erupted after a North African man allegedly attacked a 68-year-old resident of Torre Pacheco’. From elDiario.es here.

‘Jumilla business owners offer their facilities to the Muslim community for prayers. "They ban us from the soccer field for two festivals a year; it doesn't make sense," explains Lancinha, an African migrant, sadly’. An item from La Verdad here. From the same source: ‘"We should be more concerned with how we live, not where we pray". Ana López and her brother, farmers from Jumilla, employ dozens of immigrants to harvest their fruit’.

On Monday, the Government challenged the agreement prohibiting Muslim prayers in Jumilla's sports centres. The summons, presented by the Executive Delegate in Murcia and coordinated with the Ministries of Justice and Territorial Policy, maintains that the regulations allow the use of the sports centre for sociocultural activities, and therefore considers that "the objective reasons given are unfounded". elDiario.es has the story. ‘The Government gives Jumilla council one-month deadline to reverse its Islamic prayer ban in municipal facilities’ says The Olive Press here.

…

‘A Francoist group registered as a legal party mocks the death of Sumar leader Yolanda Díaz's father. El Movimiento Católico Español includes the name of the historic trade unionist Suso Díaz, who died on July 8, in a list published on its official Telegram channel under the title "cosecha rojiprogre (red harvest)"’. The story at Público here.

Spain’s economy is the envy of Europe, but the plight of its strawberry pickers tells another story says The Guardian here. Grim reading.

Some notes on Spain found on the web:

Tell them this: Spain cannot be understood without its 800 years of Arab presence (711-1492). During that period, Al-Andalus was a cultural and scientific melting pot that left an indelible mark:

• Innovations in agriculture, architecture, and medicine.

• Advances in mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy.

• Hydraulic infrastructure that is still used today.

• Cities like Córdoba, Granada, and Seville flourished as global centres of knowledge and trade.

This heritage reminds us that we are a multicultural country by nature.

Today, in the 21st century, Spain has more than 2.6 million foreign workers paying into Social Security.

However, a large proportion of them—and many Spaniards as well—work in precarious jobs:

• Long hours with low wages.

• High temporary and hourly contracts.

• Sectors such as hospitality, agriculture, and care, essential to the country, remain under-recognized.

Let's think about it:

Centuries ago, the arrival of other cultures boosted the economic, cultural, and scientific development of the peninsula.

Today, however, we still fail to tap into the full potential of those who come to work, build, and contribute.

Spain grew thanks to this mix. History shows that combining cultures improves the future.