The damp squib

REMEMBER Harold Wilson and George Brown, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown or, even further back, K & B? 

Political duos rarely last as it happened in Spain, too, with Felipe Gonzalez and Alfonso Guerra so Pablo Iglesias and Iñigo Errejon were an estrangement waiting to happen.

Errejon was one of Podemos’s founders but the rot had set long before 2017 when Iglesias’ partner Irene Montero eclipsed Errejon by taking over as party spokesman and the party’s second in command.

The split is likely to be less helpful than the Podemos hierarchy might hope because the considerable number of voters who did not take to party supremo Pablo Iglesias were rather taken with Errejon.

Podemos came out of nowhere, arriving with flash and a bang and a wallop by winning five seats in the European parliament in the May 2015 elections.

That’s the trouble with arriving in a blaze of glory as fireworks so often turn out to be damp squibs.

Are you listening Santiago Abascal?

Out-of-joint nose

MADRID mayor Manuela Carmena is an independent backed by Mas Madrid while Iñigo Errejon has left his parliamentary seat but insists that he still belongs to Podemos.

Meanwhile he has nailed his colours to Carmena’s mast to campaign with Mas Madrid for the Madrid Community presidency, instead of Podemos as originally planned.

Errejon for Community president?

A lot of people would like to see him put Iglesias’ nose out of joint and he might manage both.

An ill-wind

THE PSOE has the jitters, fearing that Podemos’s imminent shipwreck won’t do it any favours come May and the municipal and regional elections.

At present Podemos shores up PSOE town and city halls all over Spain and Pedro Sanchez expected more of the same this time round.

What’s the problem?

Hard-core supporters will still vote Podemos while outside Madrid they’ll only have the PSOE to turn to, just as pre-Vox rightwingers only had the PP to vote for.

The Iglesias-Errejon split could be just what Sanchez needs.

The anointed one

AT the Partido Popular’s recent Madrid conference the former president Mariano Rajoy Rajoy made only a fleeting appearance.

He also demonstrated his opinion of Pablo Casado by not staying around long enough for a family photo with Jose Maria Aznar that would formally anoin the present PP as a worthy successor.

On leaving politics after losing the Vote of No Confidence at the end of May Rajoy had said, “I will be loyal”, a pointed but elegant dig at Aznar who had named him as his successor in 2003.

Aznar was not loyal to Rajoy, criticising him for being insufficiently forceful and ditching his honorary presidency of the Partido Popular in 2016.

Much of that was pique because Rajoy did his own thing, not Aznar’s, so it will be interesting to see how Casado rubs along with Aznar although since the former is further to the Right than Rajoy ever was, everything should be fine and dandy. Until Casado spreads his wings, that is.