Can Lenin be vindicated in the 21st century without falling into sectarian anachronisms? Yes, it is possible. This is what historian and CUP politician Albert Botran does in his essay If Lenin raised his head, published by Ara Llibres (warning for the clueless: Ara Llibres has nothing to do with the newspaper ARA). I have known Albert Botran for years, when I commissioned a fortnightly section of history book reviews in the newspaper Today to his university professor Oriol Junqueras, who had become famous for his erudite interventions on TV3. Junqueras told me that he would do it together with a very solvent disciple, Albert Botran. I never imagined that both would make a political career. History lost two good professionals.

Two weeks after the outbreak of Catalangate, the independence movement does not quite believe that Spanish President Pedro Sanchez and Defence Minister Margarita Robles may have also been victims of espionage. "It is clear that it could be a smokescreen," said this Monday the president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras. A smokescreen, in his opinion, to cover up Catalangate and for the Spanish government to continue to not give explanations about the origin of espionage to the independence movement. This time there have been no nuances between sovereigntist parties: JxCat and the CUP have also questioned the credibility of the Spanish government's denunciation.

Months ago – in some cases years – the research group Citizen Lab, from the University of Toronto, contacted dozens of individuals linked to the Independence bid to see if they could analyse their mobile phones. They wanted to check whether they had been victims of Pegasus, a virus devised by Israeli company NSO only sold to states which could be used to access all information on a cell phone can be obtained without the affected party knowing about it. The results came back positive: their phones had been infected, yet they had all been acting as if they were being spied on for some time. As many as nine victims explained their experience to ARA.