Letter from Spain #48

Pedro Sánchez: will he stay or will he go? Plus some professional news ...

Politicians are just human beings. Most of them, anyway. Some are ruthless, tyrannical animals, but that’s certainly not the case with Spain’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. He’s shrewd, he’s astute and he’s a power-hungry risk-taker, but he’s still just a human being.

We tend to forget this about public figures. Only recently we were reminded by Kate Middleton that behind all the criticism and loony conspiracy theories about why she was taking too much time off work and avoiding her ‘public duties’, she was in fact undergoing preventive chemotherapy. That shut the trolls up.

Sánchez, 52, is married to Begoña Gómez, 49, with whom he stated this week he is ‘deeply in love’, and they have two teenage daughters, Ainhoa, 19, and Carlota, 17, who I’m sure are also deeply loved by both their parents. We don’t know what’s going on within their private family life and nor should we - although we do know that the two teenage daughters have often been subjected to abuse on social media by fascists leaving vile messages on their Instagram accounts.

If you’re unaware of the big news story behind what I’m writing about here (and it’s the only story, or ‘drama’, dominating the headlines in Spain this week), then here’s a summary:

Sánchez issued an open, three-page letter on Wednesday, stating that he needed to ‘stop and reflect’ on whether ‘it is worth continuing … at the helm of the government or to renounce the highest of honours … due to the mud pit that the right-wing and far-right have made out of our politics’. Since Wednesday, he has cancelled his public agenda, has not been seen, and will announce on Monday (tomorrow) whether he will continue as PM or step down.

It follows a Madrid court opening a preliminary investigation into his wife Gómez for alleged influence peddling and corruption, simply in response to a dubious complaint by anti-corruption pressure group Manos Limpias (‘Clean Hands’). The group, which has presented a litany of unsuccessful lawsuits against politicians in the past, said on Wednesday that its complaint was based on media reports and could not vouch for their veracity. Even the deputy editor of the media outlet, El Confidencial, that first published the reports, has said ‘we never said there was a crime’ and that ‘all we did was publish stories describing the links Gómez has with various businessmen that we thought was interesting’.

Spain’s public prosecutors office has also requested ‘the annulment of the proceedings’ of the corruption investigation opened by the Madrid court and ‘the closure of the case’.

The Manos Limpias platform is headed by lawyer Miguel Bernad, the former leader of a small far-right group called Frente Nacional. In 2021 he was initially sentenced to four years behind bars over a scheme to extort major firms, but last month was acquitted by the Supreme Court for lack of evidence.

Sánchez said in his open letter that the allegations against his wife were based on ‘non-existent’ facts and were part of a campaign of ‘harassment’ against her led by ‘ultra-conservative’ media and supported by the right-wing and far-right opposition.

‘I am not naïve. I am aware that they are bringing charges against Begoña, not because she’s done anything illegal, because they know full well that’s not true, but because she’s my wife,’ he wrote.

So … will he stay or will he go?

Taking five days to reflect on his position is pure ‘theatre’, according to his critics and the opposition parties. It’s been called ‘irresponsible’, a ‘publicity stunt’, a ‘Venezuelan soap opera’ and a cynical ploy to bolster his popularity. They claim that Sánchez is just ‘melodramatic’, ‘playing the victim’ and ‘appealing for sympathy’.

‘The prime minister of Spain can’t throw a teenage fit so that people line up to tell him not to be upset and to carry on,’ Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the main opposition group, the right-wing People’s Party (PP), said on Thursday. ‘Being prime minister is more serious than that.’

In contrast, thousands of Sánchez’s supporters gathered on Saturday outside the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) headquarters in Madrid, waving red flags and imploring him to carry on. They held up placards in Spanish saying ‘Spain needs you’ and ‘Pedro don’t abandon us’. His supporters on social media have been using the hashtags #PedroQuèdate (‘Pedro stay’), #PedroNoTeRindas (‘Pedro, don’t give up’) and #MereceLaPenaPedro (‘It’s worth it, Pedro’).

Sánchez has been Spanish prime minister since 2018 and is one of Europe’s longest serving socialist leaders.

He was able to form a new left-wing coalition government in November to start another four-year term, despite losing the general election last July. He is governing with a tiny majority with the help of Basque nationalists and Catalan pro-independence parties. The Catalan parties agreed to back him in exchange for a controversial amnesty deal for pro-independence leaders and activists - something that has incensed the right-wing PP and far-right Vox parties.

Spain is currently seeing one of the most polarised and poisonous political periods of its recent history. Politicians clearly need to be thick-skinned and it’s true that Sánchez has survived a great deal of abuse in the past.

The former PP leader Pablo Casado regularly called him a ‘traitor’, a ‘felon’ and a ‘compulsive liar’. Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal, has spoken about the day when Spaniards would want to see him ‘strung up by his feet’ - and a hanging effigy of Sánchez was thrashed with sticks by protesters during a New Year’s Eve rally in the capital. Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the populist PP president of the Madrid region also accused him of launching a ‘totalitarian’ project and ushering in ‘a dictatorship through the back door’. She was even caught on camera calling him a ‘hijo de puta’ (‘son of a bitch’) during last November’s investiture debate, when Sánchez himself made a dig about her brother’s alleged business dealings during the Covid pandemic.

So, yes, he’s suffered abuse in the past and he’s often gambled and won. But this time, I don’t think it’s a matter of his survival skills. This time - because the attacks and focus are on his wife, who he ‘deeply loves’ - I think he genuinely might have had enough.

In the recent past, the right-wing and far-right groups have tried to spread rumours about Begoña Gómez being a transwoman, that she is involved in drug trafficking in Morocco and that her family runs a prostitution ring.

On Friday, two Spanish papers published audio and transcripts of a 2014 meeting between a senior PP minister and José Manuel Villarejo, a former police inspector accused of spying on (and discrediting) some of Spain’s most high-profile politicians. In the recordings, the two men discuss plans to spy on Gómez’s father in order to ‘politically kill’ Sánchez.

Wednesday’s letter from the prime minister was reportedly written without consulting any of his advisers – a deeply personal one showing an uncharacteristic fragile side. Some Spanish media even reported that he was ready to resign on that same Wednesday, but was finally persuaded to ‘reflect’ on it for a few days.

The fact that he has since refused to meet any of his ministers and spoken only to his immediate family makes me think that he will announce his resignation on Monday, althought I very much hope that he won’t.

If he decides to remain in office, he could choose to file a confidence motion in parliament to show that he and his minority government are still supported by a majority of MPs. If he does resign, an early election could be called from July – a year after the last one – with or without Sánchez at the helm of the PSOE party.

By this time tomorrow, we’ll know.

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When I started this blog-newsletter on Substack last April, a year ago, I did so to coincide it with the publication of The Barcelona Connection. I wanted to make it a sort of weekly diary about living and working in Spain, and I said that it will ‘mix observations and news about Spain, notes on The Barcelona Connection while writing the sequel, plus a behind-the-scenes look into developing it for the screen’. And it will.

For those of you who have read the book and specifically the acknowledgements page, I explain how it started life as a film script, and I also thank several people in the film and TV world. In a previous blog post (‘Never, ever give up’), I also wrote about the journey that I have so far undertaken in trying to get TBC made into a film or a series - and despite that blog post being six years ago now, it is on-going.

Although in these ‘Letters from Spain’ I have so far not written much about what’s going on behind the scenes on the audiovisual side of things, I’m delighted to share some professional news that is directly related to the development of TBC, in addition to other exciting projects. I am going to be running Nevision Films & TV, SL - the Spanish office for the Nevision group, that has its headquarters in London, Nevision Inc in LA and New York, and its sister company Nevis Productions in Scandinavia. You can read about the news here in English, or here in Spanish, if you prefer.

I will write when I can (and when I am allowed) about what’s happening with my activity with Nevision, but all I can say for now is that there are very exciting times ahead!

Books, Reviews, Research, News & Events

I had great fun on Sant Jordi in both Barcelona and Sitges … thanks to everyone who came along and bought a book!

On Friday 20 September, I will be doing an event at the Secret Kingdoms Bookshop at the C/ Moratín 7 in Madrid. More details will follow in due course …

The Barcelona Connection - Research

In my weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ from #7 right up to #42, I also included notes about all the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection. Many of the posts include photos and descriptions of locations that appear in the book, from Nîmes, Figueres, Cadaqués, La Bisbal d’Empordà and, of course, many areas of Barcelona. There are also posts about Salvador Dalí’s Hallucinogenic Toreador and ‘The Face’, the Dalí Museum in Figueres, the Picasso Museum and MNAC in Barcelona, even Girona Airport and nearby motorway service station - as well as the G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’. I hope the notes about the research are of interest … and I hope you might buy, read and take The Barcelona Connection with you to some of the locations that appear in the book! If you do, please send me a photo and I’ll post it here …

The Barcelona Connection - Book & Reviews

A murder. A kidnapping. A lost Salvador Dalí painting. Just 36 hours to resolve all three. Every crime scene is a work of art …

Benjamin Blake is no ordinary detective. Specialising in the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art, things don’t always go the right way for Benjamin. But when they don’t, he has a stubborn determination to put them right.

Within hours of being sent to Barcelona to authenticate a possible Salvador Dalí painting, Benjamin is left stranded without his cell phone at a service station alongside a bloody corpse in the early hours of the morning, after being savagely attacked with his hire car stolen, together with the painting.

Helped and hindered by the fiery Elena Carmona, pursued by a psychopathic hitman, Benjamin becomes the prime suspect in a politically motivated kidnap and murder. All this on the eve of Barcelona hosting a G20 summit and UN climate change conference, with the police in hot pursuit fearing a wider terrorist threat.

From Nîmes in the South of France, across the border to the sweltering humidity of Girona, Barcelona, Figueres and Cadaqués, The Barcelona Connection is a fast-paced, gripping page-turner sprinkled with black comedy, blending the real with the surreal, art crime and mistaken identity … and where the clues at the crime scene might just be the mirror image of a long-lost work of art …

If you can’t locate a copy of The Barcelona Connection in your local store, it can be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBN number: 978-1-7393326-1-7.

It is also available in print or as an eBook via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from.

Click here for the latest reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads.

A review by Michael Eaude of The Barcelona Connection was published in the October 2023 edition of Catalonia Today.

‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’

‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’

A review by Dominic Begg of The Barcelona Connection was published in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.

‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’

‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’

Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.

‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’

‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’

Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.

A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid - Book & Reviews

Eighteen years since it was originally published, ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’ has just been re-issued, with a new introduction, new cover and five extra chapters that were cut from the original book.

It is available in print and as an eBook, and this time worldwide, in both formats. Bookshop distribution is underway but in the meantime you can order the new paperback or digital edition via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or the digital version on Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, or on many other platforms by clicking here.

If you’ve never read the book, I hope you will now acquire a copy and laugh out loud. If you did read and enjoy the original edition, I think you’ll love this new edition with additional chapters! More details about the book and links to many reviews are below.

A LOAD OF BULL - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid

The hilarious true story of an Englishman sent to Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue …

In the late eighties Tim Parfitt blagged his way into a job at Condé Nast in London and from there into a six week stint in Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue. Six weeks turned into nine years, and helping out turned into running the company. Along the way, Tim Parfitt discovered the real 'real' Spain. He never saw a Costa and he certainly never bought an olive grove. Instead, he discovered a booming city in hedonistic reaction to years of fascism, where sleep was something you only did at work and where five hour lunches invariably involved a course of bull's testicles.

Tim Parfitt's rise from unwanted guest to paparazzi-pursued mover in Spain's glamorous social scene is a hilarious comedy of errors. Frothing with a language designed to make foreigners dribble, hospitalised by tapa-induced flatulence and constantly frustrated by the unapproachable beauty of the women parading through the Vogue offices, he nevertheless falls in love with a city, a country and its people - despite the fact he hasn't a clue what they're on about.

You can click here for all the reviews of A Load of Bull on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads.

Links to newspaper and magazine reviews:

‘A hugely entertaining memoir ... frequently laugh-out-loud funny.’ (The Daily Express)

‘Parfitt is no ordinary Englishman … his light touch and neat line in self-deprecating humour perfectly suits this entertaining urban spin on the old tale of Brits having fun under the Spanish sun.’ (The Sunday Times)

‘A love letter to Madrid ... brilliantly captures a truly eccentric and hedonistic place.’ (The Daily Mirror)

‘Often hilarious ... a side-splittingly funny travel memoir.’ (BBC Online)

‘Vivid yet affectionate … fascinating, escapist stuff.’ (OK! Magazine)

‘Magnificent ... brilliant and moving, hilarious and truthful.’ (La Vanguardia)

‘Don't miss it … Madrid through the eyes of an Englishman.’ (Vogue España)

Spanish edition

A Load of Bull was also published in Spanish under the title, Mucho Toro - las tribulaciones de un inglés en la movida. Click here or on image below for the current eBook version.

Contact Details

You can email me at: tim.parfitt@hotmail.co.uk