If the People's Party (PP) deputy for Almeria, Rafa Hernando, had been in politics at the end of the 19th century, he would form part of the founding nucleus of the subspecies that in Spanish parliamentary jargon has ever since been known as the diputado jabalí - literally, the "wild boar MP". With sharp fangs, bad manners and the will to leave no adversary standing. A perfect cocktail that remains popular more than a century later. With more or less success, all parties have their own wild boar MPs, with their own personal styles. The PP has carefully cultivated this profile, especially since the time of José María Aznar, with aggressive, insolent temperament, and a sharp tongue always at the ready.
Hernando is a tough politician who had his best moments when Mariano Rajoy was prime minister, before he was retired from the Senate under Pablo Casado, and now, with Alberto Núñez Feijóo, he has returned to the Congress of Deputies. Well, without further ado, and while he was commenting on the conflict between Israel and the Hamas terrorists in Gaza, the veteran PP parliamentarian could not think of a better comparison than the following: "It is as if in Catalonia there were an organization that dedicated itself to building tunnels in order to bomb Madrid. Well, you see, that is simply the issue." An example like that one is quite the faux pas, since history has indeed written about such things, but in the complete opposite direction. On December 3rd, 1842, general Baldomero Espartero, regent of Spain due to queen Isabel II still being a minor and the resignation from her role of the queen mother María Cristina de Bourbón, ordered the indiscriminate bombardment of Barcelona. Twenty days earlier, Espartero had uttered a sentence in the Catalan capital that would go down in history: "For the good of Spain, Barcelona must be bombarded once every fifty years."
The PP, which is now running in 'Save Spain' mode, will at some point have to build bridges with possible allies. Or does it always want to go hand in hand with Vox?
The Espartero bombardment was neither the first nor the last. During the last four centuries - with the last time being during the Civil War - the Spanish army and its allies have indiscriminately bombed Barcelona several times, ensuring that the phrase is accurate. More recently, in 2011, one of the fathers of the 1978 Constitution, Gregorio Peces-Barba, allowed himself a dark irony about this, after pointing out that he was not pessimistic about the unity of Spain: "We will be in better shape than at other times. I don't know how many times it was necessary to bomb Barcelona. (...) I think that this time it will be resolved without the need to bomb Barcelona. Right?"
The practice of politics should be the polar opposite of insults, grievances and offences. Cultivating tension and confrontation is good for everything except building alliances. The PP, which is now running in 'Save Spain' mode, falsely wrapping itself in the flag and criticizing deals of a type that it previously made itself to govern with the Basque or Catalan nationalists, will at some point have to build bridges with possible allies in the future. Or does it always want to go hand in hand with far-right Vox? Because today this party is the only one it has within reach and it is quite obvious that this, the maximum to which it can aspire, is feast for today, famine for tomorrow. The Hernando figures of the moment are just right for a situation like the current one, and can dedicate themselves to shooting indiscriminately at anyone who is not from the PP and gratuitously insulting the Catalans. Because even if they do not understand it from their ivory towers, their supporters in Catalonia do not use this language either and the example of the war between Israel and Hamas comparing it to Catalonia and Madrid is still a complete insanity.