Jim Lawley

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…

Why are the Spanish so loyal to the EU?

25 November 2023 5:50 pm

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

17 November 2023 12:39 am

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

14 November 2023 10:10 pm

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

8 November 2023 5:30 pm

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?

1 November 2023 8:43 pm

‘We, who are as good as you, swear to you, who are no better than us, to accept you as…

Spain’s controlled anarchy

11 September 2023 12:05 am

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?

24 July 2023 8:49 pm

Sunday’s general election in Spain was supposed to answer the question: will Spain be governed for the next four years…