If the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and PSOE correctly read what happened this Sunday in Madrid, the WhatsApp group between the deputy PM, Carmen Calvo, and the Catalan vice-president, Pere Aragonès, and presidency minister, Elsa Artadi, would have lit up today, after the bust in plaza de Colón of the (moderate and extreme) right-wing demonstration. Let's leave it at bust since the VAR doesn't agree on the attendance: 45,000 demonstrators, according to the government's delegation, and 200,000 according to organisers. It's probable the true answer is somewhere in the middle, but in the end it's almost irrelevant: there's life in the dialogue if Sánchez isn't overly timid and sits down to speak seriously with Catalan independence supporters.
The demonstration against the dialogue between the Spanish and Catalan governments couldn't have gone worse for the Partido Popular, Ciudadanos and Vox. In any case, the figures fall very far from their expectations and those raised by their representatives in the Madrid media, from ABC and El Mundo to Planeta's La Razón: even their readers didn't attend and they were the ones who called the protest. It was also far from the fears of the rest of the print media from Barcelona or Madrid, its influence in decline. There's a space for frank dialogue which involves recognising the 2017 referendum, not ignoring it as suggested by the grief-stricken pens who never believed in that vote and who fell silent and bowed their heads in the face of the police repression and the violation of fundamental rights.
It would be difficult for the Spanish government to save its budget, but taking into account the importance they've given it, they should try to and look for an extension with the withdrawal of the amendments presented by ERC and PDeCAT, which would allow it to move through the Parliament. There's time until Wednesday, an eternity in politics. President Torra has said he's waiting for them at the dialogue table and Sánchez and Calvo would be making a mistake if they don't make a move. After the bust of the demonstration in plaza Colón, even if only for a few hours, Pedro Sánchez is a little stronger. It's very little, but it's something.
And Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra, the past and his adversaries. The sooner Sánchez realises that his greatest problem is at home, the better.