Dick Dasterdly

Video: Spain PM punched in the head during campaign appearance - Telegraph

Fell for the sucker punch.
Some kid pretended he wanted his photo taken with Rajoy, before giving him a whack in the mush.
Looks like a visit to specsavers will be in order now.

amideislas

Tread lightly Dick,

Rajoy is about as "right" as any Spanish politician gets, and things have demonstrably improved under his watch (although nobody would admit that). The theoretical "replacement" is the likes of Podemos. But on the upside, you'd be having a forum heyday as Spain goes down in flames.

Dick Dasterdly

Well he has you fooled at least.
His disrespect and lack of compassion for common people has been shocking.
In real terms unemployment is as bad as ever it was.
Taking into account temporary slave labour jobs at slave labour wages and the numbers who have left Spain to find work elsewhere, nothing much has changed and the true unemployment levels are a disgrace.
He may point to improved growth figures, but most folk see no benefit at all and in real terms most are much worse off than when he took office.
Some of the new gagging laws he has introduced are reminiscent of Franco.
He may be able to treat most of the population like dirt, but basically he is still Merkels puppet.

Oops, I hope those comments haven't put me in line for another 30,000 euro fine.

http://www.lacuna.org.uk/openlacuna/...st-generation/
The Lost Generation.

amideislas

So what's your solution? Podemos? If you think people are poor now...

Longlegpete

Rajoy is for me the best of a bad bunch, it can't be denied the economy in Spain has improved under his control reguarless of how you spin it

Dick Dasterdly

No, Podemos have shot their bolt, though they never were a viable alternative anyway.

Apart from the points I mentioned, the two main parties still stink to high heaven with corruption, though unfortunately quite a lot of Spanish look upon it as the norm and I fear in that respect Spain will never change.

What about these guys ?
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/20...as-spanish-pm/

Another point I failed to mention is how Rajoy is controlling much of the media output.
He had his own people put in place to partly control the output on
National stations and it's been obvious the last few years how the newsrags have been terrified to be too critical of him as they're aware of the consequences.
He seems to get about 90% coverage, while other leaders have been pushed into the background and hardly get a sniff.
Political Demonstrations are almost a thing of the past as well, or if they do dare to risk the wrath of the heavy handed cops, little if any is available for public viewing.
He's little more than a modern day version of Franco in my book, the only thing missing is the firing squads.

Retired in Euskadi

Too true.
That's why Ana Pastor quit her job with TVE1 before she was pushed; Cospedal had complained that Ana Pastor's questions were "too aggressive".
If only there were a Jeremy Paxman or John Humphries.

Fredbargate

My solution would be Fabian Picardo

Bri and Katee

Rajoy is nothing more than the Spanish Cameron.

Good for those who have money and highly paid jobs. To the millions of ordinary people living day to day, he is a dangerous nightmare who cares not one iota whether they survive or not.

rachelk

Here's what ABC made of it

olivefarmer

no matter what you think of his policies, it was wrong to punch him. I hope the yob gets an appropriate sentence.

There has been some good coverage of the Spanish election on Euronews (508 on Sky)

rachelk

Yes but I think too much is being read into it. The yob was a 17 yr old kid.

Bigmomma1

And that makes a physical assault on another person acceptable then ??

newpower

Not acceptable but understandable.

rachelk

Now you're reading too much into what I said.

Of course it's not acceptable, but it's being used to generalise criticism against the other parties in a stupid way (and no, I don't mean here, I mean on social media and by some sectors of the press).


Turns out the young yob is the son of Rajoy's wife's cousin.