“A more honest and complete appraisal of Francoism might have to confront the fact that its legacy endures in more forms than street names and antiquated legislation.”
Spain
There was a remarkable contrast this morning in two stories standing side by side on the BBC homepage. On the left, US President Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows saying “we’re not going to control the pandemic”. On the right, one positive covid-19 case sparking the testing of all 4.7 million people in the […]
The pandemic and global politics: accelerating the train crash
Who would be a Catalan President? Or at least, a pro-independence Catalan President? Look through the list of those who have served as president of Catalonia before and after the period of dictatorship under General Franco and you will find that just one served out their term in office, the rest were forced out by […]
Banned for banners: Torra’s absurd removal
“El Borbón a prisión!” That was the shout of a small group of protestors in Madrid on Sunday [9 August], after the self-exile of Juan Carlos I of the House of Bourbon, who is under investigation for corruption charges in Switzerland and Spain. The protest was small because Spain is in its holiday season, but […]
‘Where’s Juan?’: Royal corruption puts Spain’s ’78 regime in the spotlight
Sunday’s Spanish regional elections in the Basque Autonomous Community and Galicia did not produce a surprise in terms of the victors, but it did show that the trend of rising support for pro-independence parties in Europe has not been slowed by the pandemic. In the BAC, EH Bildu, the left-wing pro-independence coalition, won nearly 28 […]
Europe’s nationalist left is on the rise
Carlos Rodriguez Expósito of the Taxi Project 2.0 in Spain says the unity and strength to resist ‘Uberisation’ was developed over many years of organising and struggle. Now, taxi drivers are expanding their range of tactics. FOR a few years now, the taxi industry’s struggle against platform capitalism, the so-called ‘Uberisation’ of the economy (or rather, […]
How workers can win – a Taxi lesson
María Branyas is a name that may become synonymous with resilience. 113-years-old, she has survived the Spanish Flu of 1918-19, the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 and the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020. Branyas was in isolation for weeks after contracting Covid-19 in the care home she has lived in for two decades in the city […]
Remember the care home survivors
“The idea of a guaranteed income has gone from the cranky flagship proposal of eccentric Democratic candidate Andrew Yang to a concrete proposal in an editorial of the Financial Times, the paper of the global banking elite, in a matter of months.”
UBI: An idea whose time has come?
There’s a common refrain at the moment in the UK which goes along the lines of ‘no one can predict what is going to happen’, or ‘there is a lot of unknowns’. That is only partly true. The thing about a global crisis of this nature is that it may be very fast, but it […]
Beware of lockdown passivity
There will be no criticisms today (many of you will be relieved to read…). The situation is so urgent we just need to understand what is ahead of us and organise ourselves to deal with it as effectively as possible. To explain what’s ahead, look at the case of Italy. The country had its first COVID-19 death […]