And Madrid finally discovered Renfe

I don't know if we Catalans will ever have everything paid for, as Francesc Pujols predicted, but one thing is certain: when people in Madrid are outraged about something, it's very, very likely that we in Catalonia have already been through the same thing. The anti-Sanchista press complains about the umpteenth railway chaos, which on Monday affected the AVE line between Villa y Corte and Seville. Although copper theft is pointed out as a probable cause, the editorial bullets are fired at Minister Óscar Puente, whom they have sworn to kill, because when a man takes X and unleashes himself, he is more dangerous than a gremlin on Fantasy Island. Thus, theAbcThe article wrote on the front page: "Óscar Puente is racking up controversies on social media, against the opposition and transport companies: on Sunday alone, he tweeted at least thirteen times before the chaos on the AVE train." It's a strange rebuke. Instead of tweeting, was he supposed to have been patrolling the tracks in case someone stole a copper pickaxe?The Country, Meanwhile, he's trying to save the day by talking about possible sabotage on the front page: how well an external threat always works to cover up a railway botch-up. Or an electrical one.

The tragedy at Renfe is that the accumulation of circumstantial issues is so enormous that they have become structural. That was the case back in 2007. We already know how that ended, and the state of the railway network remains deplorable, even though, now that it affects Madrid and the capital's newspapers are snitching, the investments they've been demanding for decades miraculously begin to arrive.