Do Spaniards have the right to eat in restaurants at midnight?
Yolanda Díaz, one of Spain’s deputy prime ministers, raised eyebrows during last summer’s election campaign when she arranged to be…
How Catalan separatists are taking control of immigration
In Spain’s general election last July, the right-wing Partido Popular and the even more right-wing Vox won 170 seats, just…
Why are the Spanish so loyal to the EU?
An upright Englishman, some years after marrying into a Spanish family, finally breaks his cardinal rule. In a moment of…
Pedro Sanchez’s grubby deal to stay in power
In 2017 the Catalan premier, Carles Puigdemont, having first organised an illegal referendum and then declared unilateral independence from Spain,…
The Catalan volte face that has disgusted Spain
This weekend saw protests across Spain after the acting prime minister, socialist Pedro Sánchez, agreed to a general amnesty for…
Spaniards are horrified by an amnesty for separatists
When has a government ever offered an amnesty to fugitives from justice in order to stay in office? That’s what’s…
Can Spain’s monarchy survive?
‘We, who are as good as you, swear to you, who are no better than us, to accept you as…
Spain’s controlled anarchy
Life expectancy in Spain is 83 years – amongst the highest in the world. Deep, trusting relationships with family and…
When will Spain’s political paralysis end?
Sunday’s general election in Spain was supposed to answer the question: will Spain be governed for the next four years…
How Spain’s politics succumbed to radicalism
If Spain’s left-wing government loses tomorrow’s general election, thousands of people including many senior civil servants stand to lose their…
Can Spain forgive Pedro Sánchez?
Voters in Spain’s general election on 23 July have a clear-cut choice. They can choose to continue with the left-wing coalition currently…
What the rise of Vox means for Spain
Vox, the most right-wing of Spain’s mainstream political parties, has emerged considerably strengthened from Sunday’s local and regional elections. With…
Spain's shift towards the radical right
Yesterday’s snap election in Castile-León, one of the 17 regional autonomies into which Spain is divided, was another excellent day…
Can Spain save its dying villages?
In a little village on the Spanish Meseta, I once asked an old lady about the next village some three…
Spain's growing culture war over General Franco
There are hundreds of mass graves dotted around the Spanish countryside. In roadside ditches, down hillside gullies, dumped in pits…
Spain's pardoning of Catalan separatists may backfire
In one of his adventures on the highways of 17th-century Spain, Don Quixote encounters a gang of prisoners ‘manacled and…
Is this a new dawn for the Spanish right?
In Tuesday’s regional elections in Madrid, the right-wing Partido Popular emerged as by far the most successful party, more than…
Can Spain's Europhilism last?
‘Suppose a man be carried, whilst fast asleep, into a room where there is a person he longs to see…
Spain's anarchists are rioting
Michael Bakunin, the 19th century revolutionary Russian anarchist, identified Spain as the place where his creed was most likely to…
Catalonia’s grievance culture
‘Scotland,’ declared the Times in 1856, is ‘manifestly a country in want of a grievance.’ The same could be said…
Can Spain's faith in the EU survive Covid?
According to ancient Moorish legend, when the world was created each land was given five wishes. Spain’s first four wishes…
The dark art of playing world-class Scrabble
How to win at Scrabble
Will Spain’s nation of rogues comply with the curfew?
A few years ago, when I was in the queue to catch a plane, a Spanish lady caught me watching…
Spain’s politics is fraying
‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ Philosopher George Santayana’s dictum is starting to look more…
Spain’s bureaucracy may not survive Covid
Sancho Panza’s long-cherished ambition was to become a politician. He wanted to be installed as governor of an island; Don…
