Jim Lawley

The post-Brexit Gibraltar deal is going down badly in Spain

14 June 2025 4:45 pm

Conservative and Reform politicians have denounced this week’s post-Brexit Gibraltar deal as a betrayal. ‘Gibraltar is British, and given Labour’s…

Will Gibraltar get in the way of Starmer’s EU reset?

17 May 2025 4:30 pm

For years, the UK, Spain, Gibraltar and the European Union have been negotiating, on and off, to resolve the complex issue…

Spain needs time to recover from its power outage chaos

29 April 2025 6:40 pm

By six o’clock this morning, electricity had been restored to 99 per cent of Spain. Restoring people’s sense of security…

Spain’s defence spending boost pleases nobody

25 April 2025 8:40 pm

Just a week after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Spain to spend more on defence, the country’s socialist prime…

Why Spain is cosying up to China

13 April 2025 7:54 pm

‘You’ll be cutting your own throat,’ US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned countries thinking of aligning with China. The remarks…

How Spain is trying to dodge spending more on defence

15 March 2025 3:39 am

Spain’s defence spending, at a mere 1.28 per cent of its GDP, lags behind all other Nato members. While most…

Luis Rubiales and Spain’s war on machismo

21 February 2025 4:53 am

Luis Rubiales kissed player Jenni Hermoso on the lips during the medal ceremony after Spain won the Women’s World Cup…

What Luis Rubiales’s trial will reveal

2 February 2025 5:00 pm

The trial of Luis Rubiales, former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, starts in Madrid on Monday. After Spain…

Spain’s expat tax won’t last long

18 January 2025 5:00 pm

‘There are only two families in the world, as a grandmother of mine used to say: the haves and the…

The solution to Spain’s problems

11 January 2025 5:00 pm

It’s not often that a country can solve a serious, endemic problem quickly, easily and at no expense at all.…

Spain won’t forgive and forget over Valencia’s deadly floods

16 November 2024 1:13 am

The head of the Valencia regional government has just attempted an impossible task – justifying his administration’s conduct before, during…

Trump’s triumph has infuriated the Spanish left

8 November 2024 5:15 pm

‘Everybody’s lost but me,’ mutters a teenage Indiana Jones emerging from a cave in the middle of the desert to…

Heads will roll after Spain’s flooding catastrophe

4 November 2024 10:43 pm

Spain’s King and Queen were pelted with mud yesterday when they visited Paiporta, epicentre of the flood disaster zone in…

Why Spaniards keep being killed by bulls

27 October 2024 7:33 pm

A 57-year-old man was gored and killed during the bull running through the streets of Vall d’Uixo (population 31,000) in Spain…

Mexico wants Spain to apologise for conquering the Aztecs

1 October 2024 4:00 pm

When Claudia Sheinbaum becomes Mexico’s first female president later today, Felipe VI, the King of Spain, will not be present.…

Is anti-tourism becoming Spain’s Brexit?

26 August 2024 4:00 pm

Believing that membership of the European Union was undeniably beneficial for the UK economy, many Remainers struggled to understand why…

How does Spain solve a problem like Carles Puigdemont?

13 August 2024 1:46 am

Last week saw dramatic events in Catalonia as Carles Puigdemont, wanted for almost seven years by Spanish justice for spearheading the region’s…

Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont escapes arrest – again

9 August 2024 4:00 pm

There was something fitting about the name of the thoroughfare in which Carles Puigdemont was welcomed back to Barcelona on…

Spain isn’t afraid of England at all

14 July 2024 4:30 pm

England play Spain this evening in the final of the 2024 UEFA European Football Championship. On Wednesday evening England’s last-minute…

There’s one place in Spain that hasn’t turned against tourists

28 June 2024 4:00 pm

Would you like to spend the winter in Benidorm? I guess it depends on the alternatives, but I wasn’t surprised…

Pedro Sanchez may come to regret passing Spain’s amnesty law

31 May 2024 9:09 pm

When has any nation’s government amnestied hundreds of people facing criminal charges in return for the votes that allow it…

Javier Milei won’t stop insulting Pedro Sanchez’s wife

21 May 2024 2:53 am

The Spanish ambassador in Buenos Aires was recalled to Madrid yesterday after Argentina’s president Javier Milei described the wife of…

Catalonia has gone cold on independence

14 May 2024 4:58 am

Is Catalonia’s independence movement dead in the water? Elections held in the region on Sunday reveal that support for separatist…

Do Spaniards have the right to eat in restaurants at midnight?

10 March 2024 5:00 pm

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

19 January 2024 9:39 pm

In Spain’s general election last July, the right-wing Partido Popular and the even more right-wing Vox won 170 seats, just…