Listening to an interesting panel discussion on global inequality & democracy at the Global Progressive Mobilisation in BCN, then when they open up for questions, a guy in the 2nd row with sunglasses sticks up his hand: "I am Gabriel Boric and until about a month ago, I was president of Chile..."

Big week for Pedro Sánchez, currently in China to meet Xi for the 4th time in 4 years and next weekend will host 8 progressive heads of government (including Lula, Sheinbaum and Petro) as well as what remains of the European social democrats in Barcelona. He is positioning himself as the pivotal...

Some Sunday listening 👇👇👇👇

From Catalan independentist to the Spanish left's working class hero, Alan and I had an interesting discussion on the trajectory of Gabriel Rufian with historian Andrew Dowling:

From Catalan independentist to the Spanish left's working class hero, Alan and I had an interesting discussion on the trajectory of Gabriel Rufian with historian Andrew Dowling:

NEW EPISODE: Gabriel Rufian and the Spanish left As Yolanda Díaz departs the scene, how has a pro-independence Catalan MP turned himself into the great white hope of the Spanish left? We discuss! Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/62K9... Apple: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/g...

Tomorrow's front page 📰 Keir Starmer stays silent after Israeli Knesset passes horrific death penalty law for Palestinians

Each person shot in the head in the village of Tammun, while two other children of the deceased couple sustain injuries.

Sánchez's defiance over the Iran conflict reflects a calculation that the geopolitical risks are manageable for Spain, the potential electoral rewards significant, and that the broad alignment with Trump’s militarism will not hold.

"With conservative opposition leader (...) Feijóo openly defending military action against Iran, Sánchez can frame the party divide in terms likely to resonate with Spain’s anti-militarist public opinion, while portraying his rival as supportive of a conflict likely to drive up inflation at home."

Resisting Trump's crimes can be both a moral and pragmatic political choice. Pedro Sánchez’s lone stance against Trump may look risky, but it is cannily pragmatic www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Pedro Sánchez’s lone stance against Trump may look risky but the truth is he is a sound strategist at home and abroad. Few other centre-left leaders have shown his instinct for seizing political moments in recent decades. My opinion piece in The Guardian today: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Pedro Sánchez’s lone stance against Trump may look risky, but it is cannily pragmatic | Eoghan Gilmartin

“The Spanish PM’s defiant foreign policy line may seem outspoken. The truth is that he is a sound strategist at home and abroad” @eoghangilmartin.bsky.social

Pedro Sánchez’s lone stance against Trump may look risky but the truth is he is a sound strategist at home and abroad. Few other centre-left leaders have shown his instinct for seizing political moments in recent decades. My opinion piece in The Guardian today: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Great episode despite the lurch to the anti-Coddle side by my former friend @eoghangilmartin.bsky.social

Yesterday, I was on @sobremesapod.bsky.social, hosted by the wonderful @eoghangilmartin.bsky.social, to talk about why Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez seems to be loved everywhere but in his own country. (Link in the thread, which includes other related links.)

Why has Pedro Sánchez been willing to reject US-Israeli aggression against Iran? @becquer.bsky.social & @eoghangilmartin.bsky.social discuss the domestic factors informing his foreign policy & Sánchez's vision for Spain and the EU's place in the new world order: open.spotify.com/episode/7lRT...

Spanish deputy prime minister Yolanda Díaz has confirmed she will not lead the far-left bloc at the next election. An impressive labour minister with a clear positive record in office but one who was also a poor party leader and struggled to lead the Spanish left. She seemed to capture the...1/5

As I listened (please listen too), it dawned on me that the best lens to view the project that facilitated Trump though, is not the Nazis, but Francoism. The decades long social change programme (protecting women!!) is as important to focus on as the corruption. 1/2

For the latest episode of @sobremesapod.bsky.social, I talked to historian Helen Graham – author of The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction. We talk about her research on the vast carceral and surveillance state built and maintained under the 40 year Francoist dictatorship in Spain.

For the latest episode of @sobremesapod.bsky.social, I talked to historian Helen Graham – author of The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction. We talk about her research on the vast carceral and surveillance state built and maintained under the 40 year Francoist dictatorship in Spain.

NEW EPISODE! Francoist Prison Worlds Helen Graham on the totalitarian prison system under the Franco dictatorship Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/4qYz... Apple: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/f...

NEW EPISODE! Helen Graham on Francoist Prison Worlds Graham analyses the system of control and surveillance that reached beyond prison walls into families, communities, and everyday life, shaping how millions of people experienced the 40 year dictatorship. open.spotify.com/episode/4qYz...

I am in the Irish Independent today looking at at how Spanish police files place a Dublin fintech company at the heart of a sprawling drugs money-laundering investigation spanning Europe, the US and the Middle East. An operation implicating a cousin of Spain's King www.independent.ie/business/iri...

I am in the Irish Independent today looking at at how Spanish police files place a Dublin fintech company at the heart of a sprawling drugs money-laundering investigation spanning Europe, the US and the Middle East. An operation implicating a cousin of Spain's King www.independent.ie/business/iri...

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free

Wow! Given the current political climate, & ever more radical anti-migrant discourses, this seems particularly impressive: The Spanish government & left-wing Podemos have announced an immediate executive decree that will enable up to 700,000 undocumented migrants to gain legal residency status

Pedro Sanchez vs Donroe Trump - Spain in 2025/26 with @eoghangilmartin.bsky.social and Joe Haslam is out now wherever you get your podcasts Listen: podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/t...

“Venezuela se había convertido, por tanto, en un laboratorio financiero que amenazaba con debilitar el circuito de los petrodólares, surgido en 1973 después de la gran crisis energética que rompió las piernas de la industria occidental más vulnerable”. By @enricjuliana.bsky.social

Spanish deputy prime minister: "The US has violated the UN charter and international law. Our firm condemnation of this imperialist aggression against Venezuela. The world is less safe and free with Trump and the International of hate acting with impunity."

Key passage in Mamdani's speech: "To those who say that the era of big government is over I say we will govern expansively and audaciously." Strong pledge to recuperate the transformative power of politics and rebuild interventionist political institutions.

"The alternative to cooption is not some easy defiance but rather, for Mamdani, as for Ada Colau before him, governing will mean probing how far his core mandate can be carried amid political & administrative pressures that risk reshaping what is possible — and doing so with a potentially defining

In her inaugural speech as Mayor, Ada Colau addressed her supporters asking them: “don’t leave us alone in the institutions because it is one thing to win and another to govern." As Zohran Mamdani takes office, I look at lesson for him from Spain's left municipalist wave jacobin.com/2025/12/spai...

"The alternative to cooption is not some easy defiance but rather, for Mamdani, as for Ada Colau before him, governing will mean probing how far his core mandate can be carried amid political & administrative pressures that risk reshaping what is possible — and doing so with a potentially defining

In her inaugural speech as Mayor, Ada Colau addressed her supporters asking them: “don’t leave us alone in the institutions because it is one thing to win and another to govern." As Zohran Mamdani takes office, I look at lesson for him from Spain's left municipalist wave jacobin.com/2025/12/spai...

Me alegra ver que nuestra investigación sobre cómo los fondos de la PAC subvencionan la explotación laboral en el campo figura entre la lista de los diez artículos más importantes publicados este año en @elsaltodiario.com . www.elsaltodiario.com/explotacion-...

Me alegra ver que nuestra investigación sobre cómo los fondos de la PAC subvencionan la explotación laboral en el campo figura entre la lista de los diez artículos más importantes publicados este año en @elsaltodiario.com . www.elsaltodiario.com/explotacion-...

Que viene la ultraderecha ni funciona ni funcionará. Lo que se va a dilucidar en los próximos meses es si la ultraderecha española tiene capacidad o no para sobrepasar al partido conservador (PP). No escapamos a las lógicas occidentales, por mucho que nos creamos especiales.

OUT NOW!!! Our 'Spanish Politics 2025: A Year in Review' with Joe Haslam Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1Ozu... Apple: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/2...

#ICYMI New from me: Balancing the smooth running of local government with a bold reform agenda, as Zohran Mamdani need to do in New York, isn’t easy. Spain’s recent experiments with left local governance offer some lessons on how (and how not) to do it jacobin.com/2025/12/spai...

#ICYMI New from me: Balancing the smooth running of local government with a bold reform agenda, as Zohran Mamdani need to do in New York, isn’t easy. Spain’s recent experiments with left local governance offer some lessons on how (and how not) to do it jacobin.com/2025/12/spai...

"The alternative to co-option is not some easy defiance but rather, for Mamdani, as for Ada Colau before him, governing will mean probing how far his core mandate can be carried amid political & administrative pressures that risk reshaping what is possible — and doing so with a potentially defining

"The alternative to co-option is not some easy defiance but rather, for Mamdani, as for Ada Colau before him, governing will mean probing how far his core mandate can be carried amid political & administrative pressures that risk reshaping what is possible — and doing so with a potentially defining

A most pertinent comparison. For what it's worth, our work on Madrid's municipalist urbanism might be of interest too. For example, www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501... and www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Balancing the smooth running of local government with a bold reform agenda, as Zohran Mamdani will have to do in New York, isn’t easy. Spain’s recent experiments with left local governance offer some lessons on how (and how not) to do it.

One of the few recent parallels for understanding the challenges awaiting Mamdani when he takes office is the Spanish left’s experience after 2015 of governing 2 of Europe’s largest cities. I take a look at the lessons left administrations in Barcelona and Madrid offer jacobin.com/2025/12/spai...

One of the few recent parallels for understanding the challenges awaiting Mamdani when he takes office is the Spanish left’s experience after 2015 of governing 2 of Europe’s largest cities. I take a look at the lessons left administrations in Barcelona and Madrid offer jacobin.com/2025/12/spai...

New Episode!! Fields of Exploitation: Corporate Farming in Spain Spain is the EU’s largest fruit and veg producer, with exports topping €18b in 2024. Yet those whose work sustains this lucrative sector face widespread underpayment and labour rights violations. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/f...