The political year ends with Pedro Sánchez overjoyed by the labor reform agreement and hoping to start watering Spain with millions of European aid. With Pablo Casado, questioned and seriously questioned by his family. With Inés Arrimadas, in frank withdrawal after a slow but inexorable liquidation process. With Yolanda Díaz, under construction and paid to verbal bombast and with Isabel Díaz Ayuso, at her free will.
You already know that Madrid is freedom. Freedom to pay 12 “euracos” for an antigen test –the kind that fail more than a fairground shotgun– because those that the lady in Sol promised for free have not reached pharmacies. Freedom to celebrate New Year’s Eve at Puerta del Sol hugging 7,000 people. Freedom to go to a private laboratory to have a PCR done because in public health, infected or not, it is difficult to do. Freedom to hang up the phone when you have been waiting for three hours in primary care services. Freedom to register or not your positive, when you manage to certify it yourself. Freedom to go out for drinks until the late hours without there being capacity limitations in the entertainment venues, ask for the COVID certificate or ensure compliance with security measures. Freedom to change partners and have the fortune of not meeting her in Madrid. Ultimately, freedom to do whatever you want, except if you have school-age children.
In that case, the freedom may not be so much because the Community of Madrid, a paradise of ease and free will, proposes that the return to school after Christmas be staggered and blended. Madrilenians can go out for drinks, hug each other, get together at nightclubs and shopping centers, travel by metro and bus at rush hour without capacity limitations, but not take our children to school after Reyes. The height of inconsistency!
Throughout this time, schools have been safe spaces in which teachers and students have been an example of scrupulous compliance with the safety measures recommended by the health authorities. There is no scientific evidence that they are places with a high risk of contagion, but there is evidence of the danger for children linked to the face-to-face closure of classrooms in loss of learning, well-being, emotional health, nutrition and inequality. Parameters all of them that do not take away the sleep, apparently, to the Madrid authorities. Ayuso is concerned about the income statement of the friendly companies, confronting the Government of Sánchez, exposing Pablo Casado, demanding PCR in Barajas, controlling Telemadrid so that they “soap” her daily in the news, complaining about the lack of resources while she spends on self-promotion and boasts of lowering taxes, working with foreign correspondents to make her an international leader and appearing on the Forbes list among the 25 most influential people of the year.
This is where we were going, to Forbes, a magazine specialized in economics and finance that has gained a niche of popularity with its famous lists of chosen ones. What if the richest in the world; that if the universities with more prestige; that if the most influential characters; what if the 10 highest paid in the NBA; what if the 20 best companies to work for; what if the 10 best wineries in the world …
For the second consecutive year, the president of Madrid appears among those elected and hers have run to tell it urbi et orbi because theirs has cost them. Rigor or not apart in the elaboration of the ranking, the appearance of Ayuso, who shares the poster with the socialist Antonio Miguel Carmona, who has jumped into the electricity market this year, and with Rocío Carrasco, the daughter of “the greatest”, more than speak well of the president of Madrid, she does so of her cabinets. MAR has earned it. Congratulations, Rodríguez. By Forbes and by the cascade of foreign articles because we all know by now what it costs for the international press – also the national and local – to surrender to the charms of a politician. And it has nothing to do with your skills, but with the expertise of your teams and a good budget. Well, that: congratulations to the winners, also to the “queen of liberated Madrid.” Pablo Casado would like a MAR in his life.
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