TILTING AT WINDMILLS: ROSA TOPS THE POLITICAL LEAGUE

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

ROSA TOPS THE POLITICAL LEAGUE

Her party may have very little electoral support but Rosa Díez is currently the most valued politician in Spain. The leader of the recently formed UPyD records 5.1 in a poll by Público compared with 4.7 for Prime Minister José María Zapatero and 4.3 for the Partido Popular’s Mariano Rajoy.

Rosa Díez was the former leader of PSOE in the Basque region. Her party received just 1.9 per cent of the vote at the last election but is now recording 4 per cent.

However it is far from bad news for Zapatero and the socialists. It seems that despite the economic crisis PSOE is back in the lead. If an election was held now it would romp home with 41.3 per cent compared with 39 per cent support for the PP.

Of course different soundings give difference levels of support. La Rázon for instance gives the PP a winning percentage of the votes and more seats than the socialists.

Two things are clear though – a politician of a party with little chance of winning power is more popular than any mainstream opponent and even with the country and the world in economic turmoil Mariano Rajoy and the PP have still to convince people that their present and future would be safer in their hands. One wonders what calamity has to befall the country before Spain swings behind Rajoy.

Rosa Díez is surely a happy woman today – but the real smile must be on the face of Zapatero.

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TILTING AT WINDMILLS

Sancho Panza is much less learned but a good deal saner than his master.

"At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that are on that plain.

"Fortune," said Don Quixote to his squire, as soon as he had seen them, "is arranging matters for us better than we could have hoped. Look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants rise up, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes. For this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth."

"What giants?" said Sancho Panza.

"Those you see there," answered his master, "with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long."

"Look, your worship,'' said Sancho. "What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turned by the wind make the millstone go."

"It is easy to see," replied Don Quixote, "that you are not used to this business of adventures. Those are giants, and if you are afraid, away with you out of here and betake yourself to prayer, while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat."”