When Illa reproaches Feijóo for being against the amnesty

In the end, there were no riots or incidents in Barcelona on Saturday afternoon. But that doesn't mean nothing happened. The deployment of the Mossos and the Guàrdia Urbana was very visible, and it had been announced so far in advance that it surely deterred potential rioters. The identification of young people was constant and numerous. Most shops in the Gran Via - Passeig de Gràcia area were either closed or had their windows protected with wooden panels, and all of them without exception had security guards at the door. It was a strange afternoon, with people dressed for Halloween oblivious to everything, people in Barça shirts going to the Camp Nou, tourists, and many fewer people than a typical Saturday afternoon.

Question: is the threat of Blocus over? Well, look, the state of the matter is as follows. The Mossos see the problem as having three layers: the material perpetrators of the destruction, the "promoters" on social media, and the mastermind behind the story. Regarding both the material perpetrators and those moving them through social media, the Mossos believe they have "reached them reasonably well," thanks to arrests and identifications. But as for the third layer, no. They still don't know who set Blocus in motion. What future do they see for the movement? They don't know how it will evolve. The police will continue to monitor social media and the streets, but they do not see enough social discontent to fuel calls just for looting.

Second expectation of the week: Óscar Puente. Tomorrow afternoon he will go to provide explanations to the Permanent Deputation of Congress. Puente has not yet resigned and Sánchez has not yet dismissed him, which means that according to the daily polls conducted by the Spanish government, it is worse to let him fall than to keep him, at least for the moment. That is on the outside. On the inside, Puente is a trusted man for Sánchez and a party communicator who always plays on the attack, even crude attacks. Regarding this, let it be clear that making Puente step down will not solve Spain's train problem tomorrow. But he has more than 100 deaths in one year on his record. And, under his mandate, Spain's supposed international prestige in high-speed rail has been shattered. Because these days we haven't stopped seeing and reading analyses like the one we published here on the first day: Spanish high-speed rail is an expensive and disproportionate toy, designed to favor Madrid, that is to say, conceived in ideological terms, not service, and poorly maintained.

Speaking of Sánchez's trusted people, Salvador Illa is campaigning for him. Yesterday Feijóo was interviewed in 'La Vanguardia', and the PP president said that one cannot be president of Spain without understanding Catalonia. The PP, which voted against the 2006 Statute and took it to the Constitutional Court; which organized the entire dirty war against the 'Procés'; which votes against Catalan in Congress and the European Parliament… What have Feijóo and the PP understood about Catalonia? And this is where Salvador Illa appeared, who replied to Feijóo saying: “Indeed, that is why you will never be president of Spain. First against Catalan, now against the amnesty. A curious way to understand Catalonia”. Well, the president should think that, apart from his partially Spanish-language rallies in Catalonia, he was also against the amnesty. The presidential line of argument needs to be refined.

Good morning.