Candidates from Spain’s ‘15M’ movement – born of mass protests in 2011 – have responded in various ways to the dilemma that being elected creates for those wishing to overturn the ‘old politics’.
With a steady hollowing out of membership, the cosying up to vested interests with pockets deep enough to maintain party, today’s political parties barely “represent”.
Over the last nine years, more money has been spent on Picasso than on any other artist. How much does Picasso’s granddaughter stand to earn? And why are some in the art world concerned?
The more radical left-wing fringes of British politics can seem a strange and alien world. Meetings in dingy rooms where comrades cite Lenin and Trotsky during long excurses on the “objective conditions…
Catalans have voted for independence in a referendum that holds no official sway but has enormous significance. Now Catalonia needs to decide where to turn next. The referendum, held on November 9, was…
On the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, another milestone in European history took place: the Catalan vote on independence. Downgraded from an official referendum – which would be illegal…
A new political party has erupted onto the Spanish political scene and is now making major waves. Podemos – whose name translates as “we can” – has pulled ahead of the country’s two main political parties…
Catalonia seems to have finally pardoned Salvador Dalí. Its gesture? To name a public square after the infamous surrealist. Spain has recently been paying considerable attention to the names of its streets…
The Ebola epidemic in West Africa is the worst in recorded history. There have been in excess of 7,400 cases and 3,439 deaths, primarily in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. More recently, the spread of…
As the UK heads towards its next phase of devolution, it should look to Spain for an example of how to do it badly. In its attempt to please everyone as it drew up its 1978 constitution, Spain ended up…
For three years in a row, Catalans have taken to the streets on September 11, Catalonia’s national day (the Diada). The 2012 rally for independence gathered an estimated 1.5 million people in Barcelona…
People watching the World Cup match between Spain and the Netherlands earlier in the tournament may have been wondering why Spanish striker Diego Costa was vociferously booed every time he touched the…
When King Juan Carlos addressed the people of Spain on the day of his abdication, he spoke of his desire, nearly four decades earlier, to give Spanish citizens control of their destiny and to create “a…
I clearly remember the BBC news on February 23, 1981. The second item concerned an attempted coup in Spain in which armed soldiers marched into the Cortes (parliament) and took its members hostage. Their…
The Spanish monarchy has been thrown into crisis after the king, Juan Carlos I, announced his decision to abdicate the throne after 39 years in favour of his son Felipe. The news was conveyed via the royal…
Very much like the rest of the European Union, two features define the European Parliament election in Spain: a lack of interest on the part of voters, and the supremacy of national issues over European…
After years spent securing funds and permissions, a team of forensic scientists and historians have launched an intensive search for the remains of Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote. Using the…