Toni Aira: "Politicians with a career don't get past the first drink"

Toni Aira (Barcelona, 1977) is a journalist, doctor in communication and director of the master's degree in political communication at UPF Barcelona School of Management. One of the country's leading experts in political communication, and author of Mitólogos. El arte de seducir a las masas (Debate, 2025), Aira knows from personal experience why some politicians cover their glass on the second round.

Does drinking make communication too relaxed?

— With wine, everything flows better. When I meet with politicians with experience, they don't get past the first glass. If you try to refill it, they say: "No, no, [makes the gesture with their hand of covering the glass] I'm fine now." I suppose they are already trained: by the second glass, you start talking more, you even take more risks.

Have you lived the opposite experience?

— When I started doing journalism, I went everywhere I could to find things out. Then dinners were held

Have you also found that they started talking more as the drinks went by?

— It has also been found that he started talking more as the drinks went by?

Why?

— Some of my friends had even reproached me for it. They said: “Let yourself go a little”. And I told them: “I am ”great!" If I had to take an astral trip it would be a problem... In his memoirs, Lluís Racionero explained that he experimented with LSD in the sixties or seventies. And I thought: I should have taken the whole load of LSD to be able to start flying like this gentleman. But well, since I haven't had to do it, it's not a problem.

Have you ever lost even a little bit of control?

— Perhaps the most critical moments were in Pamplona, during the San Fermines. My maternal grandmother was from Pamplona, and I have family there. My cousins from there were very quiet people, normal, but when it was the San Fermines it was literally a festival. The calimocho, then they would take you to see the bullfight – in the sun –; it was difficult not to end up roasted. My aunt always told me: "¿Have you noticed that here in Pamplona the drunks are nice?".

And are they nicer with white or red wine?

— And are they nicer with white or black wine?

For example?

— I thought I would be a doctor. When I told my parents that maybe what I wanted to do was study journalism, the phrase they said to me was: "But do you really think you'll make a living from that?" A mythical phrase, which could make sense, and to which I didn't know how to respond. I started studying optics-optometry.

Did you find anything that interested you?

— Did you find anything that interested you?

Then, what happened?

— That the second year I said no. 

Did their parents end up understanding it?

— Yes, and they enjoyed it a lot. The sparkle in my father's eyes when I did my thesis, for example... We came from a very humble family that had to leave Galicia, like many others, because they couldn't make a living there. That idea of saying: 'We have progressed, we have managed to give our children what didn't exist before.' My father's pride, that happiness, was great. But nothing compared to when I told him I would direct the magazine Barça. That was the peak moment of our father-son relationship.

Did he have much to do with the Galician family?

— Did he have a lot of relationship with the Galician family?

And the other grandparents?

— There is a mythical anecdote. Grandfather Fernando didn't speak much Spanish. And he was a very polite gentleman: I remember him with wonderful white hair, even a little bluish. When he wanted to get your attention because you hadn't eaten enough politely at the table, he would say: "Here has eaten a pig".

Besides wine, what does he/she like to drink?

— Amaretto Sour is a topic I love. With that cherry you put there... It's delicious; a caloric bomb, obviously. But it fits perfectly after a meal. I set up a series of gatherings at home that I called CulinAires...

CulinAires?

— I don't know how to cook. I provided all the logistics: the drinks, the pre-dinner vermouths, the wine, but they taught me how to make a recipe. The younger people made delicious risottos and vegetarian lasagnas. Jaume Casals, who was rector of Pompeu Fabra, makes some excellent noodles in a casserole. In the end, it wasn't about the food: it was about meeting up, having a vermouth, lunching, laughing, and having after-dinner conversation, which could stretch for many, many hours. It's an excuse to get together. And that's very Catalan, isn't it?

In what sense?

— I remember the book All Too Human, by George Stephanopoulos, Bill Clinton's chief communications officer in the White House. He ended up with many addictions, especially to drugs but also to alcohol, and his detoxification was the reason for the book. There he said that two good, unexpected chemical reactions can make what seemed impossible happen. Well, we Catalans solve it at the table. In the manner of Dionysus.

God of the vineyard and wine.

— But also of the frenzy of the theater, of the parties, of the orgies. Normally, he is represented with grapes, but also with a panther. And I think this is quite ours: Saint John, the relationship with fire and drinking. Dionysus had suffered a lot –Zeus's wife asked for him to be killed and, in some versions of the myth, he is recomposed after being torn apart–. A very tortuous youth, which led that man to only want to live well... We are direct descendants of this.

Even the youngest?

— Not long ago I wrote an article called "Don't laugh at young people". If young people now associate partying with drinking and being out of their minds, it's also because we are raising generations who have cyclically had a very bad time: the 2008 crisis, political crises, the pandemic, wars on every corner, the housing crisis... I don't justify anyone wanting to completely escape, but the desire to escape this very heavy world is also understandable.