Ayuso toasts Christmas with his chief of staff’s favorite phrase: “Not even Franco covers this. They go ‘forward’ | Spain

The leadership of the Madrid PP met this Monday at a wedding palace, Negralejo, on the Mejorada road, to celebrate their traditional Christmas dinner and remind themselves that they are “a big family”, an expression that they repeated no less than a dozen times. The first member to whom they gave a plaque of “recognition” for her work was, curiously, called Casado, but there is no evidence that she is related to the former leader of the party, the first elected in primaries, defenestrated another cold night a couple of years ago by its acronym relatives.

The bride, the hostess, the one who governs, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, came up to speak first, and then the suitor, the guest, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in the opposition. “Thank you for inviting this humble deputy from the Madrid constituency,” declared the Galician. “Normally,” he added, “I would start by making a joke about how well Isabel and I get along, but I’m worried because no one talks about this anymore. Maybe it’s that the Government is very busy.” An excuse not sought, a plain accusation but it is true that on that journey from Galicia to the capital the former president of the . “I want Spain to look like Madrid,” he said. The politician who inaugurated his mandate at the head of the PP by ensuring that he came to beat Pedro Sánchez, “not to insult him”, called him this Monday “the cheapest president of democracy” and assured that he lacked “dignity and honor” to resign and make way for him a year and a half after the elections, repeating them until he can be president, that is, until he wants.

Ayuso gave her guest a box of Peperossome sweets recently acquired on his trip to South Korea, and an analysis of what is happening in his territory: “President, this is the national political situation: There is no bread for so much chorizo.” He also predicted a great 2025: “They are going to take everyone go ahead”, he said, paraphrasing the favorite phrase of his chief of staff, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, a frequent propagator of hoaxes and apprentice fortune teller. “Aldama has sung for soleares this morning in the Supreme Court,” celebrated the Madrid president, referring to the statement in the high court of the businessman, considered the achiever of the plot that affects the former minister and former socialist leader José Luis Ábalos. Ayuso gloated about her complicated judicial front and made fun of “her niece’s apartment”, in reference to the house in Plaza de España where Ábalos’s then-partner lived, presumably on behalf of the corrupt plot. “Not even Franco covers this and they go go ahead”, The leader insisted, convinced, on the other hand, that the calendar of events prepared by the Government for the 50th anniversary of the dictator’s death in 2025 will bring “violence to the streets.”

Nearly a thousand PP officials and members listened to Feijóo and Ayuso before tasting piquillo peppers stuffed with beef and bechamel; grilled artichoke flower with salt flakes; creamy Iberian ham croquettes; Iberian cheeks stewed on parmentier truffled; creamy cheese tart crumble and red fruits and aerial chocolate ingot and creme anglaise. The press was – literally – fed separately, since, unlike other years, the journalists had to follow the event through plasmas a few meters beyond the venue where the Madrid PP was dining.