Spain has approved a pointless amendment to its constitution, replacing the word ‘handicapped’ with the phrase ‘persons with a disability’. Not only did Socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez, who never says sorry for genuine oversights, apologise for the delay in making this happen, but he also announced that he regards himself as having thereby paid a ‘moral debt’ to the country.

The notion that this semantic tweak represents major constitutional change, let alone some kind of moral progress, is risible. Is this what is really wrong with Spain at the moment? Is this – finally! – the apology from Sanchez that’s been so long coming? Is this the constitutional issue at the centre of the country’s most complex political problem, which Sanchez himself inflamed just a couple of months ago? To believe that the answer to any of those questions is ‘yes’ is to be as out of touch with Spanish politics as Sanchez apparently is himself.

I’ve just read a biography of the Oxford philosopher J.L. Austin (1911-60), who was known for uncovering minute differences of meaning between apparently equivalent words and phrases. He would have pounced on Sanchez’s latest PR gimmick, asking questions such as: ‘Is there any difference between “handicapped” and “disabled?”; ‘Is only the former burdened with negative or patronising connotations?’; and ‘In what sentences, if any, would it look odd to swap one for the other?’ The implication being that if there are any such sentences, perhaps ‘handicapped’ and ‘disabled’ aren’t synonyms after all.

In other words, the change to Spain’s constitution is interesting from a semantic or philosophical perspective. Although a good topic for a university seminar or an evening in the pub, it’s not the sort of thing that governments should be spending their time on. Ricky Gervais makes a similar point in his latest standup show Armageddon, with a joke about a man trying to save a woman’s drowning disabled child, only to be tragically delayed by a dispute about terminology.

Spain is an open, tolerant society in which discrimination against handicapped people is rarely, if ever, seen in public life. That’s not to say that there aren’t problems in this area, though: reports have found that almost 75 per cent of the country’s four million disabled persons have difficulty leaving their homes unassisted, and that many encounter prejudice in the workplace. But instead of proposing practical ways in which to deal with these issues, Sanchez has resorted to playing with words – to zero effect.

If Sanchez is so concerned about what Spaniards think, why hasn’t he apologised for the election deal?

The Socialist leader’s latest stunt also diverts attention away from Spain’s real constitutional crisis, which centres on the issue of Catalan secession. Sanchez has always stressed his commitment to Spanish unity, with the hallowed constitution ‘in hand’ (as he liked to say) – until last November, when he made a deal with Catalan separatists to seize a second term in power. This last-minute pact represented a complete reversal of his position on Catalan independence, angering 70 per cent of Spaniards and causing protests all over the country, some of which turned violent. Concerns that it endangered the rule of law were voiced by Spain’s Conservative opposition and judiciary as well as the EU. If Sanchez is so concerned about what Spaniards think, why hasn’t he apologised for the election deal? His government has also yet to offer a satisfactory response to allegations that it has used digital espionage against leading Catalan separatists.

Seeing as Sanchez is suddenly a big fan of apologies, he could also ask forgiveness for imposing one of Europe’s harshest lockdowns in the spring of 2020 – without any legal basis for doing so. In July 2021, the country’s Constitutional Court ruled that the ten-week quarantine, during which police roamed the streets and outdoor exercise was forbidden, violated the constitution. Every one of the 1.2 million fines imposed for breaking the terms of this ruinous, illegal lockdown had to be annulled or refunded.

But there was no apology from the Spanish government, and obviously never will be. There was no admission that it hadn’t known what it was doing, like most other governments in the world, and had acted without any scientific understanding of lockdowns. Even worse, there was no assurance that it was studying its errors in order to learn from them. The semantic amendment of which Sanchez is so proud starts to seem irrelevant when compared to the occasions on which he has unilaterally violated (or arguably violated) the constitution over more important matters – and failed to apologise.

Sanchez shouldn’t say sorry for having taken too long to change a couple of synonyms in the constitution. He should extend his condolences to Spaniards for having to put up with another four years under a coalition that prefers virtue-signalling to critical self-reflection. Far from being cleared, his ‘moral debt’ to Spaniards grows bigger with every week that he’s in power.