The Popular Party (PP) has a new plan for the future of Catalans, aimed at convincing those yet to be convinced that they should vote for the party led by Xavier García Albiol in Catalonia in order to leave behind all the current political misadventures which are the "fault" of the present "riffraff".
Albiol, who never ceases to surprise with his curious new poltical targets, now wants to close Catalan public broadcaster TV3 and open a new television station "with normal people who are pluralistic" because he believes that "there has to be a change from top to bottom", since, in his opinion, "it is disgraceful that this television station is funded with the money of all Catalans".
Hardly surprising, then, that the employees of TV3 are now talking to their lawyers about possible legal action against Albiol, on the grounds that his comments incite hatred.
But meanwhile the PP leader marches on. On Friday, speaking in a bar in Cerdanyola del Vallès in the Barcelona suburbs, he demanded that "the subsidies to Catalan public television should be clearly limited because "it is a machine for manufacturing independence supporters" and what is necessary now is "to restore harmony among all Catalans".
And the rest of the subsidies?
Boasting about the application of article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, the Catalan PP leader assured that the other subsidies for the press "were already processed months ago" because, he accepted, "the newspapers have the right to those subsidies".
However, what was difficult to understand was that, after proudly saying that he had been a mayor, he asserted: "I know that the administrative formalities take a long time, and it can easily take four months", he then admitted that "those subsidies that are legal are being paid", but that on the other hand "with article 155 absolutely everything has stopped".
In the same line, Albiol, in spite of the boundless optimism that he seemed to project at first glance, ended up recognizing: "It is very important that the PP has the maximum strength in the Catalan Parliament because we are conscious that the Catalan Socialists (PSC), Citizens (Cs) and the PP cannot govern alone and the only way to get rid of this [current] riffraff is to form an agreement and that's what we are working for".
Water on his head
Things did not go so well for the president of the Catalan PP on Friday night. Before entering the bar, there were already some local residents who greeted him with estelada independence flags, cries of of "we don't want you in Cerdanyola" and renditions of the Catalan anthem Els Segadors; and when he left the bar, someone splashed water on his head.
On the other hand, Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, denouncing the pressure that the Spanish state is applying in Catalonia, especially in the media, has sent a tweet recalling the 112th anniversary of the Cu-Cut! affair, a celebrated case of Spanish authoritarian censorship in early 20th century Barcelona; as Puigdemont pointed out, the attitude of the state has scarcely changed in all this time.