With her cheap and easy populism and her undiluted Madrid-ness, which has given her such good electoral results in repeated elections in the community, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a political personality who is about as different as she could possibly be from all that the revolutionary event of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) implies, was presented this Monday in Barcelona just as the 'Mobile' also opened in the Catalan capital. The person who did everything she could to take the MWC to the Spanish capital in 2020, employing some arts that she herself would probably not dare to explain, and introduced by Albert Boadella, formerly a dramatist, now a comedian, offered a discourse full of clichés at the Círculo Ecuestre, a speech that went as far as spurring on those present with a sentiment typical of the Madrid bubble that she represents: "You are not alone".
Ayuso is as ignorant as she is arrogant. With that point of superiority possessed by those who win elections, although having learnt nothing, and nor being likely to. She was unable to take the Mobile World Congress to Madrid as nothing she could do worked and John Hoffman, the CEO of GSMA and the person who holds the rights to the congress, skillfully dodged all kinds of pressure. It was not easy for Hoffman to dribble past a Madrid contingent that had five-star supports and people in high-powered offices singing siren songs. Ayuso registered an important fail and her conference at the private Ecuestre club perfectly explains why the world congress of the mobile phone sector has, in Barcelona, the best possible venue for its celebration and success, which is, after all, what the organizers are after.
Choosing the Círculo Ecuestre as the place to explain yourself in Barcelona is already the first sign of ignorance. There are two characteristics of its identity: the air of ancient times that pervades it and the fact that it is the only forum in which the People's Party (PP) is in its element. Which should have already made her reflect, since if the PP, the smallest party in the Barcelona City Council and the last-ranked in the Parliament of Catalonia, is at home there, entirely representative of Catalan centrality is something it can scarcely be. But as for Ayuso, she did seem to be in her element addressing an audience that was full of devotion and eager to applaud her. Another visitor who did well there, not so long ago, was Manuel Valls, the ex-prime minister of France, who fleetingly raised passions just by crossing the threshold of the Carrer Balmes club. Several illustrious members of the Ecuestre were among those who encouraged him to run for the Barcelona mayoralty thinking, surely, that there is nothing more glamorous than having a Parisian at the head of the Barcelona council. Valls tripped up badly in the attempt, fell out with more than one of those who laughed their thanks to him, and returned to Paris.
José María Aznar is another of those who often chooses the Ecuestre and leaves in triumph, like those bullfighters from the old days exiting the Maestranza. Ayuso was, therefore, in her element with the representative of Tabarnia who offered her the floor after shouting "Viva España", one of the least shrill versions of a phrase that has been much repeated between those four walls since its foundation, in 1856, in Carrer Sant Pau. Today it has around 1,565 members, as its website explains, who pay 28,000 euros for corporate membership or 9,000 euros per individual. In the midst of all this radical conservatism, even a moderate like the president of Foment, Josep Sánchez Llibre, kept an eye on his watch in order to leave the room as quickly as possible.