Spanish Shilling

I’m told the FIFA-Games began this Thursday. Gracious me, what exciting times we live in, the Pope, Mr Bunny and now footie. Since the Spanish are playing, then they are of course my team (Go Spain!), but then I’m told that little Cabo Verde is doing well (they play Spain on June 15th) and that they will need our support.

Indeed, may the odds be ever in your favour.

I’ve never cared much for soccer (as you will probably have guessed by now). The sports master put me on the left wing at my first school, since I was tall and fast, but as I learned out much later, when trying to ski in a straight line, my left leg is a fraction smaller than my right, which meant I kept missing when shooting at the goal (that, and crashing into a tree). At my second (and last) school, they made us play rugger, and my inclination was to keep as far away from the ball as possible.

Since then, my only sport has been walking around in giant circles.

I’ve only ever watched one soccer game as an adult, when I was dragged to an Almería – Granada game after attending a political rally in the city bullring (you see how useful these things can be?). I genuinely thought they were teasing me, all the way to my seat high above the pitch, and this in the days before Facebook. God, it was boring.

I did join a game on one interesting occasion just after I had finally left school. I was seventeen and the foreigners (we were neither called either ‘expats’ or ‘immigrants’ – or guiris – in those days) decided to play against the cream of our village in a ‘friendly’, the losers to stump up for a jolly barbeque following the adventure.

Their side took it a bit more seriously than ours, with a final score of 11-1 (I think the Mojaquero team scored an own goal just to cheer us up). I remember that, as the final whistle went, five of our stalwarts were seen to be standing off the pitch and surrounding my mum who had at that moment arrived with a freezer-box full of beer.

But enough of this, the gentle reader wants to hear about the World Cup (Yay!).

It’s being played in various stadia scattered across Mexico, the USA and Canada.  It’s apparently very expensive to go there, cripplingly expensive to stay there (while not being arrested or deported by Trump’s goons), and nothing short of a King's Ransom to travel from one game to the next, if the inclination to do so should tempt you.

For me, having just watched the first day of the Pope’s visit to Spain on the telly, plus listening to Bad Bunny on the radio (he’s still performing in Madrid), we now face six full weeks of endless footie (104 games says the webpage). No news, just penalty shoot-outs.

Luckily, I’ve just loaded up with some thrillers at our English library.

This may all be good for Pedro Sánchez, as the attention of the electorate is swung to other distractions, and it may even be good for Donald Trump (the American 250th celebrations will be held on July 4th, half-way through the games).

So, if you like soccer, have a great time, don’t drink to many beers or eat too much popcorn, and may your team make it to the finals.

If you don’t, I could lend you a book about fishing once I’m through with it.

One day, my late wife brought home a foal she had acquired from a gypsy. Barbara loved horses and always rode bareback, When she was a child in California, she would ride to school on her horse and, as they said in those times: a hundred dollar horse and a five hundred dollar saddle. 

Well, the horse was the important thing. 

The stable, for want of a better word, was an old building near our house in Mojácar (Almería), across the street from the camposanto. A couple of years later, a Madrid doper and his British girlfriend moved in, put up a plank of wood across some bricks, and opened a bar: La Venta del Olivo. It wasn't a great success perhaps, but on the plus side, management didn't object if the customer rolled himself a joint. 

Carlos (known to all as Karlangas) tended to stock whatever he could find, which was often a fraction skimpy. You mean, he told me once, you've never tried Kahlua, reaching for the one lonely bottle in evidence upon the shelf behind him. 

Life went on, and the place was taken over by a famous artist from Águilas (Murcia) via Mallorca called Manuel Coronado who renamed it as El Delfos. He put a young Mariano - a skinny gent with long hair (he now runs a successful flamenco tablao in Mojácar pueblo) - behind the bar, covered the walls of his now greatly extended building with his paintings and set out to enjoy life in Mojácar as we all strive to do. Manuel ('Manolo') was indeed famous, and he created the Premio Delfos, with candidates who would come down for a few days and stay in the Parador hotel. These included José María Álvarez de Manzano, the mayor of Madrid for over a decade; Manolo Pimentel, a cabinet minister under Aznar, and one or two others... 

The town hall, an early enthusiast of the if-it-ain't-one-of-ours doctrine currently known as La Prioridad Nacional, would have nothing to do either with Manolo Coronado (they still don't have one of his paintings in the municipal collection) or indeed with his Premio Delfos. Manolo eventually threw in the towel when a couple of local people from next-door Turre 'borrowed' a horse of his for the village fiestas, and managed through inattention to strangle its foal. 

Mariano was left running the Delfos. Besides several brave attempts to open a restaurant, hold exhibitions and run the bar, the fact is that it is a little off the beaten path being neither on the beach nor up in the village. As such, it never attracted the custom it deserved. 

Now it's run by a new group, including the indefatigable Angeli van Os. I had got to know Angeli while we were both living in Paris in around 1984, and she must have remembered me talking about Mojácar, as a few years later, to my surprise, I bumped into her here. Angeli was a successful model before she retired and settled locally. She is one of those lucky people who remembers everybody's name, which makes her ideal for the front-person of the Delfos. The bar and restaurant is now very much a place to visit, while enjoying the advantage of being off the tourist radar. There are concerts and other events going on regularly. It's a fun place with plenty of outside tables, empty views and amusing regulars. I have to say - I've still yet to see anyone from the town hall there.

The Delfos is located on the left, down from the cemetery on the Mojácar road to Turre.

Spain is in a mess right now. The background to this is a mixture of judicial bullying, corruption, foreign meddling and improper aspiration.

Agenda Pública had several US experts commenting on Spain back in March 2026: ‘Trump’s Oval Office threat to "cut off all trade with Spain" is coercion in plain sight, and it also betrays how stretched he already is on Iran’, said one. ‘Prime Minister Sánchez’s actions are deeply disappointing for those of us in the United States who wish to see a strong U.S.-Spain relationship, including strong military cooperation between our two countries’, said another. ‘There could be other types of actions, such as measures affecting U.S. exports to Spain, investments, or visas, as well as financial matters…’.

‘The White House’, we read elsewhere, ‘through its ambassador, has publicly expressed its "frustration" with the refusal of Pedro Sánchez's government to allow the use of the Rota and Morón military bases for the war against Iran. Furthermore, the ambassador has openly criticized Sánchez for not receiving him in three months, something interpreted as a deliberate snub to the Trump administration’.

By June, this frustration had reached the point where – we suspect – the Americans and their disagreeable friend in the Middle East are now actively trying to remove a thorn in their side, in favour of a sweeter and better colleague in the Moncloa, one able to increase the national expenditure on arms while cutting taxes for the wealthy and – with the insistence of Vox – creating a Jim Crow policy against minorities (including, of course, women).

Sad to say, however, the Spanish electorate have a low opinion of both Trump’s America and Bibi’s Israel.

Late last month, and we return to the US embassy in Madrid, we find the American ambassador Benjamin León receiving in separate meetings both Feijóo and Abascal (and Ayuso in her offices at the Puerta del Sol). What did they have to discuss, asks the leader of the Izquierda Unida? Plots, plans and a new president for Spain? Perhaps.

The worry about American involvement in Spanish domestic affairs brings this headline from El Huff Post: ‘Donald Trump's frustration with Spain and suspicions about US involvement in Zapatero's indictment: "The real political target is Sánchez."’.

The Italian weekly L'Expresso has a leader that warns that "no European leader sleeps soundly" now that "Washington has activated the beacon."

But the plotters need an unarguable scandal. The joke attacks against Sánchez wife and his brother are not going to pull down the Government – maybe the Judiciary can come up with something better. Cynical? Me?

Step aside Begoña, we’ve got Zapatero… The judicial machine got rid of the Sánchez-appointed Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz last November without providing any proof of wrongdoing, while still not bringing the investigation of Ayuso’s boyfriend a year down the line any closer to fruition. The case against Cristobal Montoro goes back to 2016 while the Kitchen Case (the last PP government trying to silence proof of fraud) is being quietly unreported. The Courts block Zapatero’s bank account, but not Montoro’s, or ‘the boyfriend’, or Fernández Díaz… They threaten to take away the passport of the president’s wife (where would she go?). But, we all know what’s really happening.

As someone says, the PP has so far failed to bring down the coalition government and Pedro Sánchez, but it has succeeded in destroying the Spanish justice system and its reputation.

What stops the government from falling, says Gabriel Rufián, is that the alternative is infinitely worse. ‘These people prefer a left-wing thief to an honourable right-wing government’ says the PP spokesman Miguel Tellado.

Forget the polling station, or the 2027 elections, ‘"I will do everything possible to change the government, and when I say everything, I mean everything," says Alberto Núñez Feijóo.

Will he succeed? It’s certainly possible.

This Zapatero scandal is a mess. Whether the Zap did anything untoward or not, it’s an investigation which – thanks to the uneven tardiness of the Audiencia Nacional – could take years to resolve: with another stain on the PSOE. We have seen just how the small and silly cases against Pedro Sánchez wife – and his brother – can run for years not so much to punish the alleged perpetrator as to muddy the waters of a government which came in with a motion of censure against the PP’s corruption.

Some of which, eight years on, still hasn’t been resolved.

The establishment in Spain is understandably conservative. They, whether the bankers, the judiciary, the capitalists, the opportunists and the media-whores, all live and strive to protect their holdings. Bully for them.

The majority of Spaniards, whether manipulated or not by the system, remain poor. They have problems to reach the end of the month, and trickle-down economics doesn’t work (indeed, trickle-up seems to be the order of the day). The right-wing doesn’t have any solutions to this, besides lowering taxes for the wealthy, encouraging bullfights and coming up with clever catch-phrases against the socialists or encouraging their White Nationalism, AKA ‘Prioridad Nacional’: a form of Jim Crow policies aimed at the minorities.

Indeed, a protest last Saturday in Madrid with the PP, Vox and Álvise Pérez (he’s a small party to the right of Vox) featured a banner which read: ‘General Franco. Thank you for four decades of security, peace, love, and discipline. ¡Viva España!’

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is an ideal character to assassinate. He has been revered by the left for his social policies (same-sex weddings), his closure of ETA (how that must hurt the right-wing propagandists) and reversing Spain’s participation in Aznar/Bush’s War on terror. Now, it’s our turn say the conservatives (even if we must use material kindly delivered by Trump’s Homeland Security or maybe even the Mossad).

Besides the satisfaction of putting Spain back by fifty years, what will the PP/Vox actually do for their countrymen? They always vote against raising the minimum wage, shortening the working week, or improving our public health and education systems.

Maybe they would increase military spending, ban abortions or send a new ambassador to the embassy in Tel Aviv.

Spain is a marvellous country, populated by delightful people and full of wondrous things to see and do. Buggered if I know why they want to fuck it up.  

In yet another effort to unseat Pedro Sánchez, Manos Limpias (wiki) has made a complaint against José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for money laundering. This follows from an accusation made by Victor Aldama (a businessman released from jail to help investigations against the PSOE) on a conspiracy TV show called Horizonte. It’s now in front of the court. There had been some sub judice investigations prior to these revelations - circled around Zapatero's relationship with the Venezuelan government.

From El Mundo here, ‘The judge identifies Zapatero as the "leader" of an "influence peddling" network to rescue the Plus Ultra airline and earn two million euros (for his efforts). The court notified the former president this Tuesday of his summons, requiring him to appear on June 2nd. The National Court has charged Zapatero with money laundering, and the police have searched his office and his daughters' company’. El País in English fully explains the case here. The visibly indignant ex-president issued a statement following his indictment in the Caso Plus Ultra, releasing a video reaffirming that his public and private activities have been conducted "with absolute respect for the law". Or not.

A later story says that the Spanish court received inflammatory information about Zapatero from the US 'Homeland Security Investigations' in what might be a plan from the White House to destabilise Spain. As usual, no proof has been offered or found. The judge closed Zapatero's bank account on Thursday.

From Aspero Mundo here: 'The investigating judge had a technically impeccable option: to take Zapatero's statement before formally charging him. He could have summoned him as a suspect, listened to his version of events, compared the evidence with his explanations, and only then decided on the level of the charges. This is the option any careful investigating judge chooses when the suspect is available, has a known address, has publicly offered his version of events, and occupies an institutional position whose public exposure multiplies the cost of any procedural error.

He did not choose this option. He formally charged him first, applied the most serious charges—criminal organization, not mere cooperation; leadership, not mere participation—and then summoned him to testify on June 2, 2026. The public damage caused by the charges was done before the former president could explain anything...'

Regardless of the outcome, the damage to Zapatero is irreparable.

As another ex-president José María Aznar said: ‘El que pueda hacer, que haga’.

Gabriel Rufián (ERC) speaking in the Cortes on Wednesday ‘For all of us on the left – if this is true, then it’s una mierda. If it’s another right-wing scam, then it’s an even bigger mierda (video)’.

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is remembered for taking Spain out of George W Bush’s Iraq war and bringing about the end of ETA (Wiki). His nickname when president (2004 - 2011) was 'Bambi' and he is kind of a Spanish version, I think, of Jimmy Carter.

Opinion from El Plural: ‘The CIS (Spanish Centre for Sociological Research) had once again accurately predicted the Andalusian elections, triggering alarm bells for the Spanish right-wing media and political establishment. In that same April poll, the CIS said that the PSOE were leading the PP by almost 13 points nationally. Amid this climate of widespread nervousness, the Partido Popular and its affiliated groups have chosen a primary target to destabilize the government and the PSOE: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. This is not a casual or merely retrospective attack, but rather a cold and calculated strategy to neutralize the socialists' most effective electoral asset and thus prevent another right-wing debacle in the upcoming general elections…’

From 20Minutos here: ‘Feijóo demands Sánchez resign, but the president closes ranks with Zapatero and affirms that "there will be elections in 2027."’.

Anything said or done or alleged by someone regarding the PSOE is immediately investigated, while other things with much greater national impact are left until later (sometimes, much later). You might believe it or you might not, according to your politics, but you know it’s a frame-up.

I’m back from a fortnight’s holiday – to a village in the sun-lit green fields of southern Germany. Beautiful walks (they have walking- and cycling-paths that go through the fields and forests rather than as here: a painted-red strip alongside the roads), there’s a local children’s zoo with ducks and lambs and budgerigars, and lots of storks nesting high above the chiringuito where the adults stay for lunch and a drink; and there’s a local glider club with a whisper of sound as the aircraft land on the meadow after a few turns in the sky above.

All very nice. We stayed in mostly and watched television.

Now returned on Election Day to my village on the Almería coast, my children wanted to ‘take me out for a tapa’. This means, translated into English, to go and have a drink or two.

So we did, and duly refreshed, I thought I’d write about Mojácar’s bars, which come, as only fair, in many different shapes and sizes.

I remember the first time I got drunk. I was fifteen and had gone with my parents to some party in the village given by an odd Spanish-American couple who were, I have to say, a little creepy. They served champán (as it was called in those days). I was given a glass of this sickly stuff as my dad explored the house looking for something better to drink. He soon struck gold when he found a bottle of Johnny Walker stashed in the washing machine.

I thought it tasted even worse than the bubbly.

Later on, I was sick down my father’s shirt and we all went home. 

Mojácar back in the early days (in my case, the late sixties) only had a couple of local bars in the village, plus a tiny night-club in the arch run by madrileños and a discothèque owned by Philippe, a Frenchman from Casablanca (25 pesetas a gin and tonic). There were also a small number of bar/restaurants on the beach – plus a Government-owned Parador Hotel and towards the fishing village next door, a French-Algerian run restaurant with a cook from Maxim’s in Paris. If you made it as far as Garrucha, a fisherman’s bar opened at one in the morning – idea for that final carajillo.

The French place, El Rancho del Mar, had excellent food and a roof terrace one could sit on. My dad fell off it once and, as he picked bits of cactus spines out of his back, falsely accused the owner of pushing him.

We lived in the village in the upper of two apartments, bought (according to the escritura I still have) for 90,000 pesetas, which is 540 euros. Now, I agree that people used to pay partly in ‘black’ with the bank-manager seated in the corner at the notary and holding a suspicious-looking package, but Mojácar was in those days quite ridiculously cheap.

Probably a point of contention these days: ‘My dad sold your dad a plot of land for pocket change…’. Well amigo, that’s for sure.  

We rented the downstairs to the son of the Rancho for 1,000 pesetas and just across the way, my dad bought an old house, fixed it up with a plank of wood and a fridge, and opened his own bar. This was called La Sartén and served the community for the next half century (under various hands – my dad was strictly ‘customer class’). Sad to say, it’s now gone.

There were a number of foreign bars in the village in those times when few people lived on the playa, a couple of kilometres below. Americans Arthur and Geri had The Saloon (my dad – again – once kicked Dennis Hopper up the backside there). Sammy and Charlie Braun ran the Zorbas – both of them out to seduce tourists, according to their gender. Bob from London had La Escalera, where one could sit outside on the public stairwell and be noisy.

There was a Dutch bar, An Anglo-French eatery, an Indonesian restaurant, Mamabel’s Spanish restaurant, and an English breakfast place run by a retired nurse who would give you your injection in the lavatory… all gone now.

Now it’s rather a village of souvenirs, guided tours and improbable fictions.

Spain has a lot of bars. The Spanish don’t tend to visit them with the intention of getting drunk (Well Done, those tapas!) but to socialise and even arrange business deals over a cold caña. In Almería, there’s a bar for every 126 inhabitants. The winner though, is León with an incredible 79 neighbours for each and every caff and Granada coming next with 87.

There is, after all, nothing much on the television.  

Our strip of coast has grown with over twenty beach-bars, several hotels, many restaurants and so on (Google says there are 150 establishments now, making Mojácar, visitors aside, about one drinking place for every forty residents. If you had stayed home to watch Eurovision the other night, the town would have gone bust!).

We are lost for choice – although most of us have a very small number of preferred venues.

My dad and all his friends drank too much, too fast and too well and they are all in the cemetery now. Indeed, if you visit late at night, you might be able to hear the furtive sound of a champagne bottle being opened and the bubble of muted laughter.

Me, I stick to beer.

...

Painting from Michael Sucker. Mojácar Calle del Horno 1979.   

Back in 1982 while travelling in Guatemala, I met a Mayan fellow who told me that one should beware of the Catholics, and stick with the Evangelicals, the Protestant movement which includes the Baptists and Methodists and various other assemblies. I’m a non-religious sort, but always happy to learn something new. It seemed that the president there, following a (no-doubt regular) coup d’état, was an Evangelical. Wiki describes the faith as ‘the act of sharing the Christian gospel, the message and teachings of Jesus Christ. It is typically done with the intention of converting others to Christianity. Evangelism can take several forms, such as personal conversations, preaching, media, and is especially associated with missionary work…’ 

Evangelism and politics intersect frequently, particularly in the US, where evangelicalism has become a significant, predominantly conservative voting bloc. You may have seen the photo of the clutch of preachers surrounding President Trump in the Oval Office in what is, for European viewers, a rather embarrassing scene.

Google AI tells me that (American) Evangelicalism has become strongly linked to conservative politics and the Republican Party, especially since the 1970s and 1980s, driven by issues like abortion, school prayer, and the rise of the Moral Majority.

Anyway, that’s there. And here in Spain?

‘Evangelical Christianity is experiencing a period of significant growth in Spain, often described as a "quiet revival" despite the country's largely secular or Roman Catholic cultural landscape. The focus of active outreach in Spain is primarily on church planting, social action, and converting a population where only about 1.6% are estimated to be evangelical Christians’. It’s growing fast here, with around one and a half million followers attending some 5,000 places of worship. The main support comes from Latin American immigrants, allied with the Gypsy community through the Iglesia Filadelfia.

Early this month, a large crowd of 35,000 celebrants joined in the Estadio Metropolitano in Madrid to listen to preachers including the newly converted (and disgraced) ex-soccer star Dani Alves. The organizers claimed that the objective of the event was to consolidate Madrid as the "European capital of gospel and a meeting point for thousands of attendees from Europe, the Americas, and Africa."

From El País in English, we read of another upcoming event: ‘The evangelical boom in Madrid: Packed stadiums, public transit advertising, and political connections’. It says: ‘For days now, advertisements for the Festival of Hope featuring American preacher Franklin Graham have been appearing on Madrid’s Municipal Transportation Company (EMT) buses. The posters, which cover the sides of the vehicles, include a direct invitation: “Share the love of Jesus Christ with people from all over Madrid.” The event, expected to draw a large crowd, will be held on May 30 and 31 at the Vistalegre Palace concert venue and, according to the website, will bring together evangelical churches from all over Spain around the son of the legendary televangelist Billy Graham…’

Later in the article, we read: ‘In Spain, political connections are also becoming visible. In 2023, the Partido Popular intensified its contacts with evangelical leaders in pursuit of the Latin American vote. One of the most visible figures is the Colombian pastor Yadira Maestre…’ She says, as a preacher participating in a political rally back in 2023: “Lord, bless our mayor, bless our president (she means Ayuso), and bless Sr. Feijóo!”

Religious power can mean political power, especially if carefully handled.

On the metro, a captive audience suffers as two predicadores begin their spiel, and there’s no way off until the next station. Elsewhere, a YouTube presentation says that ‘this movement (also known as la Iglesia Pentecostal) employs "shows", the speaking in tongues and alleged miracles to attract young people and immigrants in low-income neighbourhoods. Unlike Catholicism, they seek to directly influence politics to impose their moral code, following successful models established in the United States and Brazil’.

But, as the different churches fight for our souls (and sometimes our vote), we must prepare for the impending visit of Pope Leo XIV in June. This is a Pope who defends progressive views: a popular leader heavily criticised by everyone on the right from Trump to Abascal.  

The battle lines, Brothers and Sisters, are being drawn on the fields of Jericho.

Vox brings overt racism to politics. The Vox-proposed ‘Prioridad Nacional’ (sometimes unkindly rendered as ‘Prioridad Nazional’ with a z) is raising all kinds of criticism. The thrust is that anyone, ideally, with a Spanish father and Spanish mother should come first, before all those foreigners. So far and in order to hold on to their crowns, the PP has accepted this ugly piece of Vox dogma in both Extremadura and Aragón. 

Opinion from elDiario.es: ‘Prioridad Nacional: a moral downfall. The investiture of María Guardiola this week has highlighted how the Partido Popular, far from distancing itself from Vox's racist and xenophobic positions, is adopting them as part of its ideology. Including national priority as a basis for potential aid constitutes, in addition to a breach of the principle of equality and non-discrimination, a true moral failing because it allows for distinctions between people when it comes to receiving basic state services…’

Opinion from Público: ‘Don't say "national priority", say "discrimination based on origin": the concept the far right is trying to push’.

LaSexta here: ‘"National priority" throughout Spain, Abascal's objective for his racist measure (so far) are agreed with the PP in both Extremadura and Aragon’.

The Guardian sums it up here: ‘Hard line on immigration adopted by the Partido Popular as the right seeks to overthrow the socialist government in 2027’.

The problem with this policy, popular in its day with the Austrian house painter and his concept of the untermenschen, and now found in both the Middle East (think Palestine) and the USA (ICE), is that such a thing could become policy in Spain. I exaggerate? Maybe.

First they came for the foreigners, then for the homosexuals, then for the communists, then for the women voters...

In short, the basic concept – whether expanded or not – goes that Spaniards should be first and immigrants should be at the back of the queue for health and other services. For those who agree with this - the link to the Vox page that will reserve for you a wrist bracelet with the Spanish red, yellow, red colours emblazoned with Prioridad Nacional is here. 

From Cordópolis here: ‘Sánchez responds to the PP-Vox pacts: “The true ‘national priority’ for Spain is peace, employment, and guaranteed public services”, he says. In a pre-campaign rally for the Andalusian elections, the President contrasted his vision for the country with the agreements of the right and far right, accusing them of “violating” a “sacred principle of the Constitution: non-discrimination”’.

Andalucía was always ‘Red’ right up until recent times.

Up to, and after the Civil War, the enormous estates that made up the fertile part of the region was under the thumb of the latifundistas, the absent landlords from Madrid and elsewhere.

During the War, or at least until the fascists regained control, the land was run (no doubt ineptly) by the colectivos. The worker soviets. The cities were impoverished, and many people – those that could – had left for Catalonia, Algeria, France, Germany and where possible, Mexico and South America. A figure given suggests 2,700,000 emigrated searching for a better life elsewhere.

The huge majority of the andaluces in those difficult times were lefties – perhaps understandably – and when Franco eventually went to His Reward in 1975, Spain soon threw forth a progressive leader from Seville – Felipe González and the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, the PSOE.

Spain took off, under the new democracy, but Andalucía, always poor and forgotten by Madrid, continued to lag far behind. Its regional government, based in Seville and held by PSOE figures, was noted for its corruption.

Seville: not only the capital of Andalucía’s eight provinces, but also its wealthiest. They say that the money came in – but it never left to be distributed in the satellite provinces (particularly Almería, at almost seven hours by train).

Poor leadership: Manuel Chaves and José Antonio Griñán caught in the ERE scandal; Susana Díaz, inept and then the one after her… (you know, I’m not even going to bother to look him up).

Now, in 2026, those people are all gone – some with prison sentences, others deserving of them. Even Felipe González, Seville’s most famous son, is now under a cloud.

The Junta de Andalucía, the regional authority, is currently in the hands of a conservative. He’s Juanma Moreno, perhaps the third or fourth in importance in the whole of the PP. Elections are to be held on May 17th and he’ll no doubt get in again.

How did the voters come to switch their allegiances?

For one thing, they discovered a social class below them: the immigrants.

Second, as above, they saw the corruption and graft in the socialist camp.

Thirdly, simply voting conservative gives one, at least and if nothing else, the sensation of having joined the middle classes.

And life goes on. Only, it doesn’t if you get ill.

Juanma Moreno, like Isabel Díaz Ayuso in Madrid, has been supporting the private health sector at the expense of the public one. Ayuso is stained with the unnecessary deaths of the 7,291 elderly folk in the residencias during the Covid, Juanma has the problem of the lost breast cancer results which affected several thousand women. They have both been seen to be dismantling their regional public health systems.

The PSOE-A only has the one shot at the moment in its electioneering (despite having a senior ex-Government minister as their candidate), and that’s the state of the Servicio Andaluz de Sanidad. The public health service is clearly underfunded and being drained by the private sector – and there are many who don’t have the funds for private insurance.

The elections in Andalucía will probably run as expected, but supposing Moreno has to come to a deal with Vox. Will their ‘national priority’ put me back at the far end of the waiting list, in a public hospital that is sorely under-financed?

El País looks at waiting lists across Spain. Andalucía comes out in last place for operations (173 days). 

Opinion from the ABC here: ‘Many people from Almería feel like they're Andalusians abroad, needing to know about the privileged Andalucía when dealing with administrative matters or emergencies, and not just medical ones. You go to them, the Andalusians of Almería, and they welcome you as if you've arrived at a sister tribe, isolated more by time than by distance…’ In short, Almería is a long way away from the headquarters of its regional government in Seville.

My local hospital is in Huercal Overa – the farthest you can get from Seville without leaving the region entirely. It’s 423kms by road. It’s an easy place to forget when you are a bureaucrat with a nice view of the Guadalquivir from your office window.

I used to go – now and then as one does – to the old very run-down hospital that would do service for Northern Almería. The waiting room had different chairs in it, scavenged from offices, homes and even old cars. A friend of mine was waiting once for her turn, and a glass lamp suddenly detached itself from the ceiling and landed on her head. ‘I’d better deal with that first’, said the doctor as he came through the door.  

Manuel Chaves opened the new hospital back in 1999. I have a photo somewhere.

It was pretty good – modern, close-by and with a decent bar downstairs (at least on the doctors’ side). It may not have served brandy like the old one did (you often needed a shot after seeing the doc in those days), but it had a good cafeteria and, I think it still does – no booze through. Doctors’ orders.

For some reason, the doctors at the Huercal Overa hospital have temporary assignments (or so they tell me). Many an occasion, a whole consultancy is closed down. As for extended waiting times, I’m still waiting for a test ordered last June.

The SAS (Andalusian health authority) is now sending patients to a private hospital up the road in Lorca (Murcia) for operations as the Huercal Overa hospital can’t handle them.

I know, I could go private…

The Andalusian elections will be held on May 17th and the Partido Popular will almost certainly be returned (possibly with an uncomfortable alliance with Vox). The PP has been directly responsible for underfunding the public health service (both here and in Madrid), so it's unlikely things will improve.

... 

The Partido Popular held a meeting in Mojácar last week to celebrate the Andalusian health system without mentioning our nearest hospital, the ailing La Inmaculada in Huercal Overa.