Accentuate the positive

PEDRO SANCHEZ’S “No means no” has metamorphosed into “Yes means yes.” If it weren’t somewhat overworked, the former PSOE secretary general would probably appropriate Obama’s “Yes we can” too.

Sanchez aims to restore the party’s fortunes by beating off his rivals in the May primaries to return to the post he left last October, barnstorming in towns and cities where he can be sure of a rapturous reception.

He visited Cadiz recently in pointed defiance of Andalucia’s regional president Susana Diaz. She was the party barons’ choice for secretary general in 2014 and still is.

Sanchez told his enrapt audience that they must choose between a PSOE that supports Mariano Rajoy “or us.” But with Sigma Dos and Metroscopia polls putting Unidos Podemos in second place after Rajoy’s Partido Popular it looks as though a hefty number of voters could make an entirely different choice.

Unfair advantage

EIGHT of the people convicted of terrorism linked to the Madrid bombs that killed 192 commuters on March 11, 2004 are now free.

Most would prefer to see them serving life-means-life terms but the law is the law and has to be the same for all.

How fortunate that they can benefit from the rights and freedoms they and their caliphate want to destroy.

Non-shock tactics

JORGE FERNANDEZ DIAZ, former Interior minister who engendered the infamous Public Safety Law, popularly known as the Gagging Law, continued working while undergoing cancer treatment.

He kept quiet about it and the news of his illness – and undeniable bravery – has only emerged now. This coincides with the creation of the parliamentary commission investigating recorded conversations that revealed his plans for a ‘dirty war’ in Cataluña.

Fernandez Diaz, an openly religious man who belongs to the Catholic sect Opus Dei and goes to Mass each day, wanted to discredit separatist politicians by linking them to corruption. He made a bloomer there, though.

Sadly, like everyone in Spain, the Catalans are so used to corruption they are no longer shocked by it but have come to expect it.

Same difference

PODEMOS has discarded its scornful use of Caste to dismiss and deride Spain’s principal parties. It is now using Trama to convey the sleazy network of corruption that permeates Spanish politics although Podemos is in no position to throw the first stone. Their little fiddles include undeclared earnings (Monedero), an abused academic grant (Errejon), social security cheat (Echenique) and social housing sold at a profit (Espinar). Comparatively modest ripoffs, but nice little earners all the same.