United Kingdom

there was nothing in that editorial but invective. All the writer did was object to the claim that the actions of the Guardia Civil and the Spanish military were "torture". The whole thing could be summarized as nothing but "things are worse in other places".

And he offered no evidence for his bizarre assertion that the Catalan government was following the path of Mussolini other than "they're like Mussolini because I said so".

Rajoy isn't defending democracy...he's simply defending the power of the wealthy and the power of the centralized state. In Spain, centralization is indistinguishable from opposition to all change.

And the writer of that piece is basically saying "my dad was persecuted by Franco-so it's ok when I'M authoritarian".

There are hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of Barcelona protesting Rajoy. With the Spanish military there, with the Guardia Civil(and institution that has no reason to have survived the Franco era and which should have been abolished the moment Franco died, being replaced by a politically and socially neutral police service)patrolling, these people are risking their lives.