Banal and dull

THE retired police chief Jose Manuel Villarejo, now in prison awaiting trial for money-laundering, breach of confidence and sundry criminal offences.
In retaliation he is revealing bugged conversations with political celebs who would obviously rather those conversation were not made public.
Villarejo isn’t fussy and is as happy embarrassing the PP as the PSOE and his latest victim is Dolores de Cospedal.
In De Cospedal, accompanied by her husband Ignacio Lopez del Hierro entertained him in her office at the Partido Popular’s Calle Genova headquarters in Madrid.
At the time she was the PP’s secretary-general and wanted the lowdown on party grandee Javier Arenas, the mentor whom by then she had turned on.
Villarejo was also asked to keep businessman Lopez del Hierro au fait with Gurtel developments.
Cospedal who has now resigned from the PP’s executive committee remains superglued to her parliamentary seat but what emerges from the bugged conversations is their banality and dullness. John Le Carre it ain’t.
 
Kingly reflections
IT has been said that in Spain, the Left and especially the far Left, identifies democracy with republicanism.
That’s logical, bearing in mind that until Franco’s death the only time democracy was present, recognisable and documented in Spain was the Second Republic, declared in 1931 and interred in 1939.
It’s hardly surprising that the Catalan separatists who want to abolish Spain also want to abolish the monarchy, still incensed by Felipe VI’s speech calling for unity on October 2 last year following the unauthorised referendum.
That speech appeared to have been written by the then-PP government but according to some sources it was all Felipe’s own work, although it’s debatable if that makes the speech itself any better.
What is not debatable is that the speech made matters worse.  For non-separatists and the rest of Spain Felipe was preaching to the converted while the separatists refused to get the message.
It was a far cry from his father’s speech on the night of February 23 in 1981 when Juan Carlos defused a coup d’état.
If it’s any consolation, Felipe can at least reflect that the world’s most civilised and democratic countries all have monarchies – and that still includes Spain.
 
Grandad’s legacy
FRANCISCO FRANCO’S descendants continue to fret about where to bury the old dictator whose remains will be removed from the Valle de Los Caidos mausoleum where he lies in state.
The family’s arrogant and refusal to bury him discreetly and out-of-the way is totally in character but the demand for their democratic rights grates like a fingernail on a blackboard.
Aren’t they aware that under Grandad they’d have had none?
Sign of the times
MEMBERS of the former Catalan government who are now remanded in prison will no longer be charged with rebellion, only sedition, which still sounds more like Ruritania or a banana republic than a 21st century democracy.
The third charge of misappropriation of public funds also remains and there can be nothing more representative of the 21st century than that.