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- War games part one - 6th October 2026
- Poll to poll - 5th October 2026
During 23 years with the BBC, and in a 43 year journalistic career (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, covering major political stories was pivotal, and this is now underlined by the unpopular Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez calling a snap election in the face of enormous protests over housing.
FINALLY he MAY go.
The beleaguered Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, who has been in position since 2018, has called a snap election, which will be held on November 29.
Mr Sánchez’s decision comes days after tens of thousands of people took to the streets in protest at his country’s housing crisis in the wake of the forcible eviction of an 87-year-old woman.
In Valencia on Saturday, demonstrators clashed with police, who fired rubber bullets and tear gas, but other protests in 50 Spanish cities were peaceful.
I’ve seen this countless times (not least in Wales, although without the protests), when unpopular political leaders claimed they were on the right path, while everyone knew otherwise, and turned to the ballot box for help.
However for Mr Sánchez the picture looks especially bleak, because there have have been a number of controversies, including being rocked by a series of legal cases involving his party, as well as his brother and wife, who both deny wrongdoing, and the government has had to respond to border crossings by tens of thousands of migrants – mostly Moroccans – into Spain’s North African territory of Ceuta.
Recordings indicate that sex workers may have been hired in another incident, which is seen as hypocritical in a party that proposes to ban prostitution.
Mr Sanchez has led a coalition minority government with the left-wing Sumar party since 2023, but his calling now of an election looks an incredible gamble, because the polling numbers of his party the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party [PSOE] are not good.
A recent PolitPro polling average puts the right of centre People’s Party (PP) on 32.4 per cent, while the PSOE are on 26.2 per cent.
Apart from the recent headline-grabbing issues, Mr Sánchez is viewed as not brooking dissent from within his own party.
On Mr Sánchez’s orders, he (along with others) ruthlessly sidelined critics inside his party, so he has few to blame for things going wrong.
Polls show that Spaniards are more disillusioned with their politicians than any other Europeans, apart from Bulgarians, Greeks and Slovenes.
Mr Sánchez has repeatedly apologised for his aides’ alleged transgressions, but that has not been enough to restore faith in Spanish democracy.
Until recently he was apparently determined to stay in power – perhaps he liked all the trappings that go with being the Prime Minister (PM), like using the palace he has been gifted by the taxpayer.
So it seems that Mr Sánchez has now asked the electorate to bail him out, as has happened many times in Wales.
Politicians eh?!
The memories of Phil’s extraordinary decades long award-winning career in journalism (when he often saw senior politicians determined to stay in the job), as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
Tomorrow – why major warnings today from senior politicians, and intelligence officials about Russia’s hybrid ‘war’, put centre stage once more The Eye too being targeted, as well as how the resignation of Tennessee’s Department of Correction commissioner, Frank Strada, after the failed execution of death row prisoner Christa Pike, offers us another opportunity to re-publish our story about this extraordinary case.
