Miriam González Durántez, the wife of Britain's former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, has launched a new political party to contest Spain's general election on 29 November. Resisting conventional ideological labels, her party, Democracia21, is pitching for voters weary of choosing between Spain's bitterly antagonistic political blocs. At the party launch in Madrid on Saturday, she urged 'those who hold their noses when they vote' to support her new party. This year's Pew survey found that 68 per cent of Spaniards were dissatisfied with how their democracy works. Spain has now fallen from 30th in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index in 2012 to 49th in the latest rankings, below Botswana and Rwanda. ✍️ Jim Lawley Article |