Work experience

THIS time round Mariano Rajoy took part in the televised debate between the presidential candidates.

Rajoy didn’t stray once from his line that his government has created employment and only he has the know-how to steer the country on a steady course. Four years in government after losing the two previous elections undeniably adds up to experience.

But despite his immovable faith in himself Rajoy looked elderly and vaguely beaten beside the three young lions who will settle their differences before allowing him another four years in power.

Product placement

THE Unidos-Podemos voting alliance sell themselves as social democrats even though the Unidos side of the marriage is Spain’s former communist party.

But what’s in a name? The label hardly matters if punters buy the product and as the latest polls show, notwithstanding Iglesias’ personal unpopularity, that’s what they will probably do.

Newspeak

WITH the exception of the scrupulously politically correct, the Spanish are tiring of campaigning politicians’ insistence on using the individual niños y niñas instead of a collective niños when referring to children or trabajadores y trabajadoras for workers.

Rigorous respect for equality legislation should never be ridiculed in a society where women endured centuries of discrimination. But the modification is a boon for politicians who never make do with one word where they can use two.

All isn’t forgiven

THE Telecino programme ‘Quiero gobernar’ gave young children the chance to talk to Mariano Rajoy. Even the tots wanted to hear his excuses about his party’s links to the country’s biggest corruption cases, to which Rajoy truthfully answered, “Nobody’s perfect.”

It’s unfortunate that even for the Spanish, especially those of a certain age, the phrase is indelibly, inextricably linked to the closing line of ‘Some like it hot’ when Jack Lemmon admits to Osgood Fielding III that he isn’t a blonde bombshell.

Voters everywhere naively want the politicians they put in power to be perfect. A party inextricably and indelibly linked to corruption can’t expect admitting its faults to lead automatically to forgiveness, let alone a partnership.