"Ah, finally..." or "they fine-tune it for you"?

An appearance before Congress by Daniel de Alfonso, the former chief of Catalonia’s Anti-Fraud Office currently serving as a judge in Cantabria, and Spain’s former Minister of Interior Jorge Fernández Díaz, now comfortably sat on the panel of an irrelevant committee. One of those appearances which, as a member of the public, one is tempted to watch in utter disbelief, as if one had lost the ability to form judgment and yet recovered the much-needed ability to be surprised.

Both de Alfonso and Fernández Díaz acted as if they were the victims of a conspiracy and denied the recordings that had been made public (the prosecutor no longer "fine tunes", they are "finally" … the prosecution). Their strategy was to deny everything and hope for the sufficient degree of foolishness on behalf of Catalonia’s public opinion for them to be seen as the victims of an enormous setup. With the clamour in the room of those who insulted and interrupted Rufián, the ERC MP, during his turn to speak. The latter did not fail to mince his words when he referred to De Alfonso as a "dogsbody", a "lackey", "traitor" and a "gangster". As if an abundance of rhetoric could overcome any feelings of impotence.

The main impediment to clarifying whether Rajoy was aware, how much it cost and how many civil servants were theoretically involved, is that Operation Catalonia holds no shame in Partido Popular circles. The brave soldiers in the service of the PP and of a certain idea of a unified, reactionary Spain —from which many wish to escape— look sympathetically upon any action against those who think differently and who wish to say so through their vote. Any day now they will pass a law against separatists, slobs and crooks.