Since he decided to call elections in the heat of the housing mobilizations, Pedro Sánchez has lost two of his most prized squires: the PSOE spokesperson, Montse Mínguez, due to her partner's real estate dealings, and now the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, his most effective media battering ram, due to the terrible Urda accident that has claimed 69 lives. On paper, no political leader can survive such a disastrous start to an electoral pre-campaign. However, within the catastrophe, Sánchez has found a way to turn Puente's resignation into a kind of lever to take flight again, or at least attempt to.

On Monday, June 22, 1936, Engràcia, a maid working in the home of a wealthy German family settled in a central apartment in Valencia, asks for help to open the bedroom door. Something is wrong. The children are not in their room and no one responds to her knocking. An electrician finally helps her open the door and what they discover inside is a macabre spectacle: the entire family dead on the bed, the parents, Akiva and Friga, and their two children aged 13 and 10, Wolfang Jakob and Stefanie Johana. They are members of the Bacharach clan, a Jewish family of German origin settled in Valencia since the beginning of the century, who recently arrived in the city fleeing Nazi persecution. Apparently, it is a suicide, as they all died from gas poisoning. The news shocked the Valencia of that time and resonated in major European newspapers. Now, thanks to the investigation by journalist Vicent Garcia Devís, we can immerse ourselves in the history of this lineage, one of many that form part of the dark crucible of the Holocaust (the family is officially considered a victim of the Nazis), in Akiva. Escaping the wolves (L'Austrohongaresa, 2026).

The electoral pre-campaign has been blown to pieces. Until the accident in Toledo, what we had was a comeback for the PSOE that, even if it might not have been enough to break the PP-Vox majority, was enough to put Alberto Núñez Feijóo in a bad spot and weaken his leadership. Now the PSOE and the left have no choice but to activate survival mode to prevent the conservative wave from running them over. And this opens up the range of other multiple battles.

While awaiting the final toll of victims from the Spanish high-speed train accident in Toledo some conclusions can already be drawn. The main one is that the fact that it occurred only nine months after the Adamuz tragedy represents a very hard blow against one of the pillars upon which Spain has built its international image in recent years: the most extensive high-speed railway network in Europe and the second in the world, only behind China. The so-called Marca España (Spain Brand) is based on the projection of a modern and competitive country, with modern infrastructure and a firm commitment to sustainability and clean energy. All these aspects converge in the Spanish high-speed rail, which is now being called into question. Images of the accident are currently circulating around the world, opening news broadcasts due to their spectacular nature in broad daylight. A nightmare for the managers of Renfe and Adif.

"I must think very carefully about my words, but I believe that if the far right wins, we will have a civil war in France." These words from French political scientist Sami Naïr have left the audience attending the last dialogue of the Enfoquem conference, organized by ARA at the Sant Pau Art Nouveau Site, frozen. The moderator, Esther Vera, asked him at that moment with a look to explain his prediction, and Naïr was completely transparent: "In France, the political tradition is violent, it is not consensus-based like in Italy. Perhaps it is a product of the Cartesian mentality; they think that problems are solved logically with violence."

"There are many international actors who are interested in weakening Europe, which is the last bastion of liberal democracy". This warning from the former Italian Minister of Defence between 2014 and 2017, Roberta Pinotti, hovered over the room at the Sant Pau Modernista Precinct where 200 people invited by ARA attended the Enfoquem conference to analyse the state of European security. The diagnosis that Pinotti drew is very clear: Europe is a kind of garden in a wild world that has suddenly been left without its guardian and now has to run to protect itself. It must wake up. The most explicit threat is the Russian one, but there are many more.

The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun (Barcelona, 1982), visits the ARA newsroom a few days after it was made public that he will be number 2 on the Sumar candidacy for Barcelona in the upcoming general elections.

The facts are as follows: the Broad Front, which wanted to recreate the 2023 Sumar formula, has not been possible on a general scale, so both Irene Montero and Ada Colau will formally be candidates for the presidency of the Spanish government. Neither of them, however, is the preferred candidate for the bulk of Spanish left-wing voters, who prefer (oh, surprise) the republican Gabriel Rufián. And now let's recap.

The lawyer Joan Piqué Vidal, known for having led the defense of Jordi Pujol in the Banca Catalana case and having been convicted later for corruption, died in Castelldefels on October 7th at the age of 93. His life is the story of a fall. From being one of the most influential lawyers in Catalonia in the 90s, a member of what was then known as golden robes, he went on to enter prison following the Estivill case and to fall into absolute discredit, the example of what someone who believes in the functioning of the law must never do.

Pedro Sánchez Castejón (Madrid, 1972) is, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, "an enigma, wrapped in a mystery inside a hieroglyph". Is he the cynical, cold and unscrupulous monster that the right paints? Or is he the empathetic and compassionate leader for the people who are struggling most that the left defends? Is he an aspiring dictator or, on the contrary, the last wall standing against the global far-right? The only certainty is that between the current Pedro Sánchez and the one who burst onto the political scene in 2014 there is an abyss. And it is this evolution, riddled with dramatic twists, changes of opinion and an undeniable capacity to overcome adversity and adapt reality to his needs, that has led to what we know today as Sanchismo. This is the story of the great prestidigitator of recent Spanish political history.

Pedro Sánchez has called snap elections that, in reality, are a plebiscite on his person and, especially, on what he represents and what we know as Sanchismo. Sanchismo is defined, first of all, by opposition. In a world dominated by a strong conservative, and even reactionary, impulse, Sánchez has managed to build his own profile that is almost countercultural: his congenital smile and optimism clash with the depression of the international left. The other great ingredient of Sanchismo is a specific way of doing politics, with a strong sense of power (something that especially makes the right nervous and has led him to clash with the deep state), and a mixture of opportunism and a sense of opportunity, just as he demonstrated back in the day with the amnesty and now with the housing decrees.

If Pedro Sánchez stands out for anything, it is for his political instinct. With the polls on the ground and the conversation framework dominated by Ceuta and the PSOE corruption cases, the Moncloa had designed a plan that consisted of presenting a very expansive budget project this autumn that would allow him to generate many headlines and culminate in a vote at the end of the year in which the treacherous triple right (the PP, Vox, and Junts) would defeat them. This was the ideal framework to call them for February or March, since the elections could turn into a referendum on those social budgets, that is to say, on the country's model.

In current politics, hyper-leadership proliferates, but what is valued most is a personal brand that exceeds the party brand. This is what characters as disparate as Gabriel Rufián, Carles Puigdemont, Ada Colau, or Juanma Moreno Bonilla have in common.

In 2019, the newspaper El Mundo launched a campaign with the slogan "The truth, however uncomfortable it may be". Over time, this phrase has become institutionalized and the newspaper uses it regularly to promote itself. I thought about this when, this week, I read a report on Ceuta that certainly caused discomfort among its own readers, as could be seen in the comments section.

Just as last weekend in Spain right-wing people were in favor of Madrid and Formula 1 and left-wingers against it, now the same thing has happened again with the gesture of the Real Madrid stars who did not want to wear the solidarity shirt with Ceuta. While the right-wing press is crucifying them and practically demanding their public stoning, the progressive press has come to the players' rescue. The newspaper El País publishes this Friday an editorial sympathetic to at least one of the players involved, Kylian Mbappé, who is also the only one who has given explanations, in this case to the newspaper As, which, oh surprise, also belongs to the Prisa group. The most curious thing is that when this newspaper published the full interview with the player, it omitted this part.

In Madrid, they still have not digested the act of rebellion by Vinícius, Mbappé, and Konaté in refusing to wear a solidarity shirt for the people of Ceuta. So much so that now they are starting to fire, by elevation, at Florentino Pérez. The best example is an article signed by Kike Marín – a sports journalist with long experience who has worked for Mark andAs– a El Confidencial titled "The offense of Mbappé, Vinícius and Konaté in Ceuta, another symptom of the lack of control at Real Madrid". The journalist points to one of Pérez's main advisors, the Moroccan-born Anas Laghari, as being responsible for this lack of control and for some decisions that are difficult for Madrid fans to understand, such as the low profile the club has adopted regarding the Ceuta cause. "The simple fact that the honorary president of Real Madrid, José Martínez Pirri, even if it is from Ceuta it should embarrass Mbappé, Vinícius and Konaté", he writes. "It seems that the club is slipping out of Florentino's hands", he concludes.

Today is a day when culers, and anti-Madridistas in general, can sit back and eat popcorn while the White House implodes. The refusal of Mbappé, Vinícius, and Konaté to wear a solidarity shirt with Ceuta before the match against Elche has sparked an authentic pitched battle on social media and has fractured Madridismo into two irreconcilable camps. On one hand, there are those who consider these three players traitors to Spain and to the values of the club that pays them, and who, therefore, must be expelled from Real Madrid. And then there are those who consider that politics and sports should not be mixed and downplay it. What is happening? Well, the former are the ones who identify most with the stances of the PP and Vox, and accuse the latter (and the players themselves) of playing into Pedro Sánchez's hands. This is how, for example, Zabala de la Serna writes in El Mundo.

Tempered at The Objective, hired by Abc for her investigations into PSOE corruption, a panelist on esRadio and Horizonte... Ketty Garat has become a new shining star of the 'fatxosfera' (right-wing sphere). In one of her latest appearances on Federico Jiménez Losantos' program, he asks her, as the daughter of a military man, what her opinion is of the photograph taken of King Felipe VI with the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, and the heads of the three branches of the armed forces: land, sea, and air. And Garat replies: "My father was not only an admiral, but also a member of the Navy leadership, and that forces me to be prudent, but I have my own personal opinion. There is a deep conviction right now, not only in the military sphere but also in the realm of justice, of the Prosecutor's Office, that this government is a democratic danger, it is a threat to democracy".

Formula 1 fans gave their verdict on Sunday regarding the Formula 1 race in Madrid. Searching with the keywords Madring (which is the name of the circuit) and boring resulted in endless lists of complaints from viewers. So much so, that even Minister Puente saw an opportunity to weigh in and described it as a "dud".

My nose tells me that when you have to exaggerate the success of an event a lot, it is because something is failing. These days one can verify the level of nervousness that reigns at Ayuso's place regarding Formula 1 by watching Telemadrid turned into a NO-DO that is shameful. Saturday's news program began with the following headlines. First: "The consecration of Madrid as a temple of F1" (??). Second: "Ayuso and Almeida tour the circuit". Third: "Madrid makes history". Fourth: "The fans crown Madrid". And the fifth was, naturally, about Ceuta.