Tellado, an Ábalos for the PP

I think I won't be too wrong if I write about Miguel Tellado now the same thing I wrote about José Luis Ábalos in his day: a star is born. He had just pulled off a major upset, having regained, against all odds—and against the party apparatus—the leadership of the PSOE, from which he had been ousted months earlier. (mockery), asking for the vote of the party members to once again become the leader of the PSOE. He was accompanied in that car by his few remaining loyal supporters: José Luis Ábalos, Santos Cerdán, and Adriana Lastra. He was then at the point of being able to generate enthusiasm, at least among PSOE members and voters. It was more difficult with the rest of the left-wing forces and with the Catalan and Basque separatists, because at that time, the only party Pedro Sánchez wanted to govern with was Albert Rivera's Ciudadanos.

For his part, Feijóo has also long since ceased to inspire enthusiasm, even among PP voters and members, especially after the trauma of not governing after the general elections two years ago. As David Miró says in his articleFeijóo seems to have failed to fully understand the dynamics of Madrid politics, let alone parliamentary politics, and that leads him to close in on a lament ("I'm only four votes away from being able to push through a motion of censure") that only serves to highlight the evidence of his lack of leadership and, above all, the toxic relationship on which he depends. A relationship sealed by the budgetary or government pacts they have signed with Vox in different autonomous communities, and very particularly in the Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands, where policies against Catalan and public schools, and in favor of deregulation and speculation with the territory, have placed the PP at the most extreme part of the nationalist right.

The difference between Sánchez and Feijóo is that one has ceased to inspire enthusiasm from the government, while the other has ceased to inspire enthusiasm from the opposition. The coincidence is that both have positioned as their right-hand men the same kind of sly dog of supposedly unwavering loyalty, yet also lacking in much insight, which presumably gives the leader unconditional support. It remains to be seen whether Ábalos (and company) will end up costing Sánchez his term. As for Feijóo, Tellado may be one reason he never governs.