💰 Your subscription discount here. LAST DAY TODAY 🚨
💬 Substack chat here
Forward the briefing to your friends if you like it
TODAY'S COLUMN
[Have lost my voice. We shall continue with the audios tomorrow]
NOTES
1—Things are not going well in parliament (I): yesterday, Vox walked out of the chamber after the deputy Speaker censored MP Patricia Rueda (Vox, Málaga) for using the expression “friends of ETA”: "this government ignores Málaga and the regions that are loyal to Spain and rewards the friends of ETA, nationalists and coup leaders".
2—Abascal said that what happened to his MP was "extraordinarily serious" and that the government is "in the process of assaulting all institutions".
3—Things are not going well in parliament (II): today, Irene Montero (Podemos, Equality Minister) spat at the Popular Party that “You promote rape culture”. She was referring to an ad campaign run by the PP in Galicia.
4—The ad campaign in question has been done by the regional government in Galicia (PP) and shows a girl going out for a run with the copy: “She is wearing sports clothing, and she’s going running at night. What happens next? It shouldn’t happen, but it does”.
5—Montero’s law: “is giving away jail sentence reductions and early release to many sexual offenders”, said Belén Hoyo (PP), “Are you aware of the seriousness of what is happening? Have you put yourself in the shoes of the real victims? What are you going to say to a woman whose rapist is on the streets now thanks to your law? Think about it for a second and admit that you are in no condition to look any of those women in the eye”.
6—Then, Batet (PSOE, Speaker) scolded Ortega-Smith (Vox) for the use of "coup plotters": "In this chamber, there are parliamentary groups, male and female MPs, all of them legitimate, so there are no parliamentary groups that are coup plotters or terrorists and I ask you please not to use those terms”.
7—The PP wants Montero to resign. All of their MPs and senators will meet outside parliament in Madrid tomorrow to demand she do so.
8—"Many of us MPs are called fascists every day and nothing happens", tweeted Ciudadanos leader Inés Arrimadas: "Then those who call the friends of terrorists ‘friends of terrorists’ are expelled. It is intolerable”.
9—The INE has published new 2021 census data for Spain. Among the numbers is this table, which shows the towns with more than 10,000 inhabitants with the highest and lowest unemployment rates in Spain. The worst off? Cádiz, Cádiz and more Cádiz, with some added Sevilla. The best off? Madrid, Barcelona and the Basque Country.
10—If we add 18 of those 20 towns with the highest unemployment to a map of Spain, we get this: it’s all in Cádiz and Seville (the other two are Ceuta and in the Canary Islands, so not on the map).
11—There’s also this table, which shows the towns of more than 10,000 inhabitants that have lost the most population since 2011. Asturias, Salamanca and Ciudad Real.
12—One person was slightly injured at the Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid after a letter that had not gone through the scanner exploded. Reports mention "a small wound on the ring finger of the right hand." Police are investigating.
💰 Subscribe now:
🔥 Understand the stories changing Spain better
📝 All the articles + 🔊 audio + 💬 Substack chat
💪 Guarantee this independent reporting & analysis