Episode 128: Well That Didn't Go as Planned: a PP Story

Previously in Europe

Episode: Episode 128: Well That Didn't Go as Planned: a PP Story
Website: Previously in Europe
Feed URL: http://simplecast.com/podcasts/2120/rss
Duration: 01:02:02
Published: 2019-05-06 06:00

This week it's Spanish election coverage. Also a lot of nonsense from Europe's right-wing. Hooray!

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Show Notes

Nonsense Section

You'll be shocked to hear EKRE are assholes

EKRE leader Mart Helme called the president "emotionally heated" after she walked out of the swearing in ceremony of their new Foreign trade and IT minister https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/03/estonia-minister-calls-first-female-president-emotionally-heated-woman This was because this the man in question, Marti Kuusik, was being investigated for domestic abuse and had recently been caught speeding with alcohol in his system... so a cool guy who you'd happily want to be present as head of the state for the country who's government he was being sworn into. He's since resigned. I think it lasted a day (https://news.err.ee/936301/new-culture-minister-kuusik-resignation-was-inevitable)

Right-Wing Group's Growing Pains

##Orban being messy

Hungarian PM Viktor Orban hopes to forge a European pact with Italy's Matteo Salvini at a meeting in Budapest on Thursday. In an interview with La Stampa, Orban said "the EPP is preparing to commit suicide and wants to tie itself to the left...we need to find another path via cooperation with Europe's right wing". On migration, Orban called Salvini the "most important person in Europe today".

https://euobserver.com/tickers/144775

##Swedish Democrats are dissappointed

Sweden Democrats are now not set to join a new Salvini-lead far-right group in the European Parliament, party leader, Jimmi Akesson told Dagens Nyheter. "I am disappointed," he said, to not have been invited. His party could however not work with "Russia friends from France" - a reference to Marine Le Pen, he added.

https://euobserver.com/tickers/144763

##Salvini vs the Caliphate

“For our children, to leave behind an Islamic caliphate with sharia law in our cities is not something I want to do and I’m going to do everything in my power to avert this sad ending for Europe,” he said at a joint press conference with Orbán, who has used similarly incendiary rhetoric to rail against migration to Europe from Africa and the Middle East. Salvini made similar comments earlier this week in Italy.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/02/matteo-salvini-vote-for-nationalist-parties-stop-islamic-caliphate

Russia mustn't fall into China's Orbit says Women working with people very willing to fall into China's Orbit

##Le Pen warns against pushing Russia 'into arms of China'

FN is now sexy, no longer anti-euro, anti-EU AND we've gone Green.

Also I'm real excited about this Salvini thing

https://euobserver.com/eu-election/144754

Danish Lawyer who's appealing against a conviction for racism is now running for office

goody...

Rasmus Paludan of the The Stram Kurs, or Hard Line party believes in the deportation of all Muslims and the preservation of the country for its “ethnic community”

Paludan, whose videos on YouTube, eccentric fashion sense and penchant for stunts have long earned him a following among teenagers. Some of these videos he's burnt a Quaran and also said bad things about Africans which is what landed him the problems in courts.

Recent changes to the Danish electoral system (lowering threshold to 2%) means he may now have a chance.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/05/danish-far-right-party-stram-kurs-calling-for-muslim-deportation-to-stand-in-election

Topic 1

Snap Spanish Election

Good fun was had by all ------------------------- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019Spanishgeneralelection

The news of Casado's revolution was greatly exaggerated. Apparently a hard right turn was not really what the PP voters wanted...

https://www.politico.eu/article/spain-conservative-revolution-pablo-casado-right-wing-election-2019/

A transition

Spain is now properly a multi-party system and Sanchez has to accept that. To be fair in 2011 it was really a 2 party system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011Spanishgeneralelection)

His prior performance as PM reflected that previous state of affairs https://jacobinmag.com/2019/04/psoe-pedro-sanchez-spain-elections-vox/

Spain, the post-amble

Timmermans won't shut up

There's been quite a bit of praise and use of this as a boon for the S&D in the run up to the EU election.

Timmermans wouldn't shut up about it during the Spitzenkandidaten (sans-weber) debate (https://www.politico.eu/article/timmermans-and-verhofstadt-spar-in-european-election-2019-debate/).

Saying that Weber can't be trusted because he was basically just the PP. Which being from the CSU isn't really an unfair comparison...

Vox under-performance?

I mean... not really? They got 10.3%... which is around what they were polling. Sure some polls had them at 12-13% and estimates of high 20s to mid 30s seats (one had 42), but an average showed a reasonably steady 10%ish.

This brings in the frequent assumption of secret conservative or far right voters who don't show up in polls... Which is what fuels a lot of UK polling over estimating Conservative party polling after some upsets in the 80s and here was used to assume Vox would probably overperform.

They don't even have a massive voter base in Andalusia, which is supposed to be their home turf - they still came 4th (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resultsbreakdownofthe2019Spanishgeneralelection(Congress)#Andalusia)

Why there's still media attention around a mysterious silent majority of right wing voters is confusing because it has constantly failed to materialize (see Swedish Democrats UKIP in every general election, the past few Dutch election)

Their candidate in Barcelona said they'd get 18% of the vote because the polls weren't capturing their support - which is what every far right party says... but it doesn't materialize so why are we still talking about it.

Time for Dealz?

No...

Sanchez wants a minority government again but Podemos have been pretty up front about not wanting to back that and to get into government. Sanchez will likely wait until after the upcoming local and EU elections to finalize anything as he can truck on as the "winner" into those.

Ciudadanos are out for sure... and if these trends continue they might become the new center right major party. The PP has a lot of dirt on it and it might continue to decline.

It's probably going to be long

https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/04/30/inenglish/1556608489_985863.html

##Gaysper

Vox start a meme on Spanish twitter centered around a gay ghost, who we all now love

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/02/vox-partys-anti-lgbt-lord-of-the-rings-aragorn-tweet-slain-by-tiny-gay-ghost