The shit in Spain falls mainly in the fan

[The Larch]

Christ, they do make Rajoy look like a titan of statemanship.

I guess Casado. Ayuso is actually good at populism - which scares me - while Casado bumbles all the time.

The "Otros vendrán que bueno te harán" refrán rings true, all the time. 

It's kinda amazing the scorched earth that PP ended up with after Casado's election as party head. Everybody who was something in the Rajoy governments is done and dusted. There's literally nobody they can bring up from their current leading spots that can make you think "Yeah, he/she could do a good job". I mean, if Soraya (who I always thought was the one "meant" to succeed Rajoy) returned they should roll out a red carpet for her. The moment PP chose Casado over her was a massive lost opportunity.

[celedhring]

Well, the stink of corruption from the Rajoy governments certainly made retaining all that "talent" a bit problematic. 

But you know the conservatives are in trouble (and by extension, the country), when the most palatable PP politician is your pal Frijolito.

[The Larch]

Well, the stink of corruption from the Rajoy governments certainly made retaining all that "talent" a bit problematic. 

Oh sure, there was no chance that people like Cospedal could continue, but Soraya was always the "cleanest" of them all.

But you know the conservatives are in trouble (and by extension, the country), when the most palatable PP politician is your pal Frijolito.

Not my pal. 

But yeah, when a guy who was caught red handed with a well known smuggler is their best hope for electability...

I mean, many people expected him to go national and compete for the leadership back then, but he must have felt that it'd imply several years of desert crossing and it was better for somebody else to burn themselves rather than him, and come later as their saviour.

[Zanza]

Calling an early election only to end up in a position where you have to rely on fascists is really 5D chess.

[celedhring]

Calling an early election only to end up in a position where you have to rely on fascists is really 5D chess.

There's a bit of internal party politics at play. Casado's position is being threatened by Isabel Díaz-Ayuso, the Madrid president who obtained a sweeping victory last year in the Madrid regional election and who's become a darling of the conservative media. Casado wanted to dillute that victory with further victories in this regional election and then another one in Andalucía later in the year. That way he could claim that it was PP winning, not Ayuso winning, and strengthen his control of the party. His gambit has fantastically exploded in his face, and Ayuso is already agitating for change.

[celedhring]

And it's on! "Somebody" leaked to the Spanish press that people in Casado's team tried to hire investigators to get kompromat on Ayuso's brother (who allegedly would have benefitted from Covid-19 contracts given out by her sister's administration).

That party is such a swamp.

[The Larch]

So they don't have any shoplifting videos this time. 

[The Larch]

Summary for a very eventful day:

Madrid's president accuses own party leader of 'cruel' smear campaign
Isabel Díaz Ayuso says Pablo Casado has tried to destroy her reputation amid reports he hired private investigators

The regional president of Madrid has accused the leadership of her own conservative People's party (PP) of waging a "cruel and unfair" campaign to destroy her with false corruption allegations amid reports the party tried to hire private detectives to investigate her family.

Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who is often touted as a future PP leader, spoke out after media reports suggested that, during the first wave of the Covid pandemic, her administration gave a €1.5m contract for face masks to a company linked to her brother – for which he received a commission.

The reports also alleged that an official in Madrid city hall – which is also run by the PP – contacted a firm of private detectives with a view to getting them to investigate Ayuso and her family.

Relations between Ayuso and the PP's leader, Pablo Casado, have been fraught over recent months. While Ayuso has bolstered her national and international profile since winning an emphatic victory in last year's Madrid regional election, Casado has faced questions over his leadership strategies – not least the party's recent, pyrrhic victory in last week's Castilla y León regional election.

On Thursday morning, the PP mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, said he had looked into the reports that his administration had sought to hire a detective firm to spy on Ayuso and her family, and said he had found no evidence of such an arrangement.

A little later, Ayuso went on the offensive.

"Even though political life is full of heartaches, I could never have imagined that the national leadership of my party would act against me in such a cruel and unfair way," she said in a televised address.

"There is nothing more serious than accusing someone in your own house, and who has a responsibility to govern, of corruption."

Ayuso said that PP leaders had spent months putting together a dossier on her and her family in an attempt to associate them with corruption when all the party had to do was look at publicly available documents relating to the contract.

"The fact that they were preparing a file means that they weren't searching for any truth; they were trying to smear me personally and politically," she said.

Ayuso did not deny that the face mask contract had been awarded to a company linked to her brother, but she insisted the process had been completely legal.

"I asked my brother and he confirmed that he had had a business relationship with the company and that it was all completely legal, and that everything had been declared to the tax authorities," she said.

She also challenged Casado and his circle to provide any proof whatsoever of wrongdoing, and pointed to her own electoral success.

"I'd like to know how many votes those who have spent months attacking me have won for the PP," she said. "It's very hurtful that the leaders of your party are not the ones who support you, but the ones who want to destroy you."

The PP's general secretary, Teodoro García Egea, hit back at Ayuso later on Thursday, saying that it had only sought her cooperation in examining the allegations, and adding that an investigation had been launched.

"Since we received information about these alleged irregularities over the summer and asked Isabel Díaz Ayuso about their veracity, all we've got from that direction – instead of a clear answer – is a massive campaign of attacks, packs of lies and slanders like the ones we've had today," he said.

[celedhring]

Summary for a very eventful day:

Eventful kinda undersells it, I wanted to get some work done but I just couldn't stop looking away while the party imploded, furiously F5ing El Mundo et al 

[HVC]

Are they normal conservative or fascist conservative? Trying to gauge how amused I should be.

[Iormlund]

Are they normal conservative or fascist conservative? Trying to gauge how amused I should be.

Christian democrats. Low on ideology, high on corruption (having been in and out of governments for the past 30 years).

[celedhring]

The fact that Ángel Carromero has resurfaced as the mastermind behind the alleged botched espionage attempt is particularly amusing. He's the guy that 10 years ago went to Cuba to meet an anti-Castro activist leader, and killed him in a car crash. Either a commie double-agent or a truly smooth operator.

[The Larch]

The fact that Ángel Carromero has resurfaced as the mastermind behind the alleged botched espionage attempt is particularly amusing. He's the guy that 10 years ago went to Cuba to meet an anti-Castro activist leader, and killed him in a car crash. Either a commie double-agent or a truly smooth operator.

When he was driving way over the speed limit and without a licence. "No me mates" Carromero indeed. 

If that's the skill of the "plumbers" available to Casado, he is toast.

[celedhring]

What's worrying is that PP have quite an institutional history of doing this kind of underhanded shit - to both political foes or "friends" - Fernández Díaz, the "Little Gestapo", Kitchen, Método 3, now this... The list is getting quite long.

Of course, the alternative to PP right now is a bunch of fascists, so we're kinda between a really jagged rock and a hard place coated in acid.

[The Larch]

I don't know if it's ironic or cringeworthy that Ayuso is so easily and nonchalantly admitting that his brother took massive comissions from his government.