The Tepid Take

We are alarmed, we are all alarmed. Even Francis Fukuyama, who once declared that the neoliberal consensus symbolised the end of history, has refined his beliefs in the face of identity politics and the populist wave. The commentariat as it exists today is happy to decry what it sees as the end of common sense politics, relenting to extremism, the end of a nebulous representative democracy. Of course, this has yet to come to pass, but it’s a tangible fear nonetheless. Today I want to explain why Spain’s Pedro Sanchez is the most brazen exception: why he holds high the torch of social democracy, currently the proudest branch of the Reformist tradition, in the face of increasing political hardship. I want to establish through a brief analysis whether there’s something special about Spain, or whether it’s all down to Sanchez himself, complete with wily consultants and remarkable jawline. Pedro Sanchez has been the Prime Minister of Spain since 2018, when a moción de censura (vote of

If you visited the Tate last December, you'll have noticed the giant iceblocks out front: their gentle melting a testament to the decidedly un-gentle process of climate change. These resolute bergs, nicked from the Arctic itself, were installed by Olafur Eliasson and Minik Rosing, to raise awareness of the precarity of human life on earth. This “ Ice Watch ” could melt away just as easily as all our hopes and dreams, if we don't prevent catastrophic, irreversible climactic change, which is what we're still hurtling towards like some vindictive planet-sized Titanic impersonator. There was something about the frigid blocks that bothered me, though. The installation was sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies, not a dangerous organisation in itself, but one built on the back of high-risk financial speculation and investment banking: economic structures symbolising the very weak points in late capitalism that leave us teetering on the edge of climate disaster. The irony (i