The treasures of sherry

We were talking Spain and drinking Spanish. The UK and Spain are very different societies, but we did find points of comparison. As a very broad generalisation, Spaniards can be divided into three political groupings. There is a Europhile elite who take their political identity from a projected European future, and almost none from their nation’s past. To them, Spanish history is largely a record of backwardness, poverty, oppression and conflict. The EU is a means of ensuring that this past can be left in the past.

The two much larger groups cannot forget the past, and especially the civil war. Those on the right would usually insist that they were modern conservatives, with no hint of the Falange, but they are glad that Franco won and are proud of Spanish traditions, especially the bullfight. They would also see Catholicism as central to Spain’s identity.