"There are no rats in Moncloa; I have seen them in Downing Street and the Élysée Palace."

London"There are no rats in the Moncloa Palace. There are in Downing Street and the Élysée Palace, I've seen them." More on M-30 politics: Madrid's frequently maligned taxi drivers, at least the two who drove a certain Alastair Campbell to the Spanish capital last week, believe Pedro Sánchez still has plenty of time left in power. The first one said:"He's the best president we've ever had, and it's about time we realized it." And the second: "I don't care about the polls, he'll win again." There you have it. Not everyone listens to COPE or Libertad Digital. Some might have SER on all the time, and they could do more cameos in Almodóvar films than in Torrente.

Who is Alastair Campbell and why does he know so much about the rats in the circles of power? Because he's spent a lot of time there. And because, among other reasons, he'd already visited Moncloa Palace—"A veritable art gallery," he says—and the Élysée Palace with Tony Blair. Campbell, quite simply, is a veteran of the Westminster village. Ex spin doctor Blair, who, to put it simply, had to resign in 2003 due to the Labour government's blatant manipulation of the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction that led to the Iraq War. Along with Rory Stewart, a former Conservative MP and briefly a minister at the end of Theresa May's government (2019), They posted an hour this Monday conversation with the Spanish Prime Minister for his show The rest is politics

This is the most prestigious and followed political podcast in the United Kingdom, and possibly in the entire Anglosphere, at least the non-Trumper side. They naively believe that a different world and a different kind of politics are possible. Within a framework of order and without radicalism. The order that Brexit, Donald Trump, populism, and the digital society have shattered.

Campbell and Stewart went to Madrid to see for themselves, motu proprioif Pedro Sánchez He is the global leader and nemesis of Donald Trump with which to combat the power of the Death Star. The ending is difficult to predict, and to find out, we will have to wait for the next general elections in Spain. For Campbell, Sánchez is "quite an impressive man, a phenomenal politician," and for Stewart, he is "brilliant, very skillful, capable of taking a position and then reversing the decision."

The questions tiptoe around some of the most common criticisms of Sánchez on the domestic front. But it's an understandable sin. The podcast has a global audience that, after all, may not be so interested in knowing how the Spanish president justifies the PSOE's corruption cases, the amnesty law —although it does— or if he believes Catalonia will one day be independent, he answers: "I think Catalonia simply wants to be respected, for its identity to be recognized, just like that of the Basque Country." Did he more or less sense it but not realize it until the 2023 elections finally opened his eyes?

For serious coffee lovers, like this very columnist, the conversation is not to be missed. Not so much for what President Sánchez says about domestic or foreign policy, or about his confrontation with Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, but because it confirms the fascination he holds outside of Spain in progressive or center and center-left circles. For example, when he says that "Europe must be today, especially today, a force for good." What does that mean? "That we need to build alliances, not only with the US, but also with the rest of the world, and that we need to have a more committed approach to global debates such as climate change, inequality, social justice, migration, and, of course, what we should do about artificial intelligence and its regulation."

Who comes out on top?

Who benefits most from this podcast? Not Sánchez, because if he were to lose the election against the advice of the second taxi driver mentioned, and, let's say, were offered a professorship at Harvard, Donald Trump wouldn't grant him a visa. On the other hand, in the hypothetical case that Abascal and Feijóo understand English, they'll resort to the usual refrain: he doesn't talk about what truly interests Spaniards... Campbell and Stewart, in turn, take another step up in their prestige: the doors of La Moncloa aren't open to just anyone. And that's especially true when it comes to podcasters. patriots, La Pija and La Quinqui arrive first. than others that are more pointed.

An hour into the interview, the question as a listener is inevitable: what has changed in the world in recent years that leads polls to indicate that the rats finally have a good chance of taking over the Moncloa Palace, just as they did the White House? For now, and according to Campbell, Pedro Sánchez is much more effective than Larry, the old cat of Downing Street. For how long? The rest is not just politics, it will also be history.