Times They Are A-Changing: Podemos

Maria Dolores Cospedal is the secretary-general of the Partido Popular. Like Nuria Riera in the Balearics, the regional education minister and PP spokesperson, Dolores cuts a sympathetic appearance. She is the soft-looking, acceptable-to-the-public face of the PP in contrast to the scary and habitually scared-looking Rajoy and the frankly terrifying dominatrix of a vice-premier, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaria. It is Dolores's lot, therefore, to have to make public pronouncements that, were Soraya to make them, would have everyone dashing behind the sofa. Last year, Dolores addressed a gathering of Nuevas Generaciones in Toledo. This is the PP youth wing, the equivalent of the Young Conservatives but without the tweed jackets and the leather patches. Dolores, talking to the converted conservative, informed her audience that, economic crisis notwithstanding, the young people of Spain had more opportunities than ever before. For some reason she then decided to quote the then 71-year-old Bob Dylan in observing that the times they were a-changing. Perhaps she did so in the belief that by invoking a lyric from fifty years previously she would be appealing to the youth. Almost certainly she appeared not to have recognised that the now septuagenarian had penned what was considered to have been the anthem of the 1960s' protest movement.

Dylan, were he to be starting out today and to be Spanish, would in all likelihood be the musical voice of Spain's protest - Podemos's lead singer and poster boy. Dolores, now probably apprised of Dylan's cultural significance, didn't mention him the other day when being the obvious choice to front what will become a full-frontal assault on Podemos and its leader, Pablo Iglesias. Podemos, said Dolores, was "very dangerous for democracy". Much as one doesn't wish to be too harsh on someone as nice as Dolores, she has some brass neck to start issuing lectures on dangers to democracy when so many members of the PP have managed to swell prisoner numbers and keep judges and prosecutors in gainful employment. But then, there have only been "some issues of corruption", she continued, echoing Mariano's "few small incidents".

Depending on which survey you preferred, Podemos was shown to either have a slight lead or to be running a close third in the opinion polls. Both of them have put a gale force wind up the PP, and so Dolores was sent out to try and prevent the roof tiles of government being loosened and crashing on top of the PP by painting Podemos as being anything but a soothing breeze. She alluded to the now familiar and alleged Venezuelan connections and style of Podemos and - item for the brass neck prosecution number two - also suggested that the freedom of the press would be endangered. This would presumably be the same freedom of the press which, by way of a couple of examples, led to journalists at the RTVE national broadcaster, who were asking tough questions of Rajoy and his government, being found other jobs and to a threat to sue Telecinco over a debate regarding the Bárcenas affair.

Podemos and Iglesias can now anticipate not being out of the glare of publicity for a single day as opponents dredge up whatever dirt they can, such as the video of a drunk Iglesias singing "The International" alongside rapper Pablo Hasél, who was sentenced in April to two years for glorifying terrorism, or indulge in wild frenzies of tweeting, as in the PP spokesperson for the town hall in Paredes de Nava who last week tweeted that Iglesias was a "hija de puta" who should be shot in the neck. Whether Dolores considers that tweet to be dangerous for democracy is, as yet, unknown.