Lenox

Well there it is. A big-time win for Mariano Rajoy.

bil

Well, I'm just looking forward to the ushering in of an age of milk and honey.

Plus, rember as of this moment, everything that goes wrong or doesn't improve is entirely the fault of the PP.

jimenato

Is that what you think?

Really?

Nobody with a brain would.

scampicat

No surprise int hat result.

I don't know a lot about Spanish politics, but have they forgotten who lied to them about the Madrid bombings, blaming them on ETA?

fionamw

I think he may have had his sarcastic hat on................. (as in, that's what Zap's lot will be saying even if clearly not true)

agoreira

Remember Mariano Rajoy never promised any miracles!!!
"No habrá milagros, no los prometimos" - Mariano Rajoy.

Miguel Arias, the Popular Party's campaign co-ordinator, said Spain was "going to make all the sacrifices".
"We have been living as a very rich country," he told BBC News.
"People are used to a very high level of public services and it takes time to them to acknowledge the realisation that we now are a poor country, that we have lots of debts and in order to pay them back we must reduce public expenditure and then we must recover the confidence of the markets."

Señores y señoras, agárrense que vienen curvas. ;-)

Dick Dasterdly

Exactly.

I find it hard to understand why anyone would want to pick up the poisoned chalice left behind by the Socialists either in the UK or Spain.

With the best will in the World it's virtually asking the impossible to clean up the mess the two new govts have inherited in our time.

Domino

so that means all the vanity projects, the road improvements and expansion, the railway improvements, the Metro in Granada,,,,,,,,,
will stay unfinished, a blot on the landscape, something to take the touristo's to look at and wonder about. Whilst traffic backs up due to suspended roadworks. Construction eqpt going rusty in the sun like a load of nodding donkeys in the Texas oilfields.

The beaurocatic nightmare of Spanish civil "service" will get even worse, instead of weeks it will take months for a simple piece of paper to be rubber stamped.

Oh happy future, but its ok, blame it all on the last lot, who left it in such a mess it will take decades to resolve.

amideislas

I've always been a believer that we, the public, are at least partially, if not equally responsible for the chaos in politics - in any country.

We vote and then blame whatever party we voted in for all the problems, despite much the problems having existed long before...

We are fickle. We don't like this leader or this party, so we vote another one in. That party never meets our expectations or becomes complacent and corrupt, so we vote another party in.

Not that the socialists did anything positive - Socialist parties everywhere have a long history of corruption and wasteful, not-well-thought-through over-the-top spending - usually to line all the pockets around them. For me it's a wonder anyone voted for them in the first place, but again, the public is short-sighted and fickle, so I guess it's no surprise.

Still, I hold little faith that the PP or any other party is likely to make significant changes while they hold office. Their ideas might seem like they are pointed in the right direction, but humans are humans, and politics is politics, and in today's situation, the problems are much bigger than any party. There is a limit to what they will be able to achieve, even if they actually try.

Corruption in Spain is systemic, not ideological, so you can't change it without changing the system from the ground up, and that is not going to happen without the equivalent of a political nuke event.

But if the Euro goes belly up and Spain goes into fiscal convulsons, that could be the event that changes everything - but not without some very serious pain.

We shall see.

Dick Dasterdly

About the only thing the last shower missed out on, was leaving a note behind saying "Sorry no money left".

Now where have I heard that before.

agoreira

I saw a bigwig from the Banco Central de España being interviewed a couple of days ago, and he was very pessimistic. Asked about the free health service, he said it was totally unsustainable, no way could it carry on as it has been, so expect some big changes there.

jimenato

It wasn't me - it was the cat - or the brandy.

agoreira

La presidenta del Partido Popular de Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre tells us "This government (PSOE) is leaving the coffers empty, there's no money for pensions nor unemployment, and a tremendous deficit that has to be paid" Sound familiar?

Dick Dasterdly

Post 10 possibly ?

Domino

more decades of corruption court cases ?