Spain’s election ends in deadlock

Hello from London.

What a lot can change in 24 hours. Yesterday Vox, a hard-right party in Spain, looked poised to join the centre-right People's Party in government after a snap election called by Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister. Now, after Mr Sánchez's Socialists outperformed expectations in yesterday's vote, and Vox fell short, it's anyone's guess what will come next. Many observers have fretted about the rise of the far right in European countries like Sweden, Italy and Poland. (They will also have noted with alarm comments by the leader of Germany's centre-right opposition, who yesterday appeared to open the way for collaboration at local level with the far-right Alternative for Germany.) But in Spain, at least, the national-populist threat seems to have been seen off—for now.

Elsewhere, our US reporters have looked into a common complaint: attending university in America has become unaffordable, landing students with vast debts and eroding the “graduate premium” (the extra lifetime earnings a graduate can expect relative to a non-graduate). Not true, we report: the actual cost of college in America has been falling since 2006, and the premium remains higher than in many comparable countries.?

Good news does, alas, remain at a premium. Russia’s withdrawal from the Ukrainian grain deal last Monday—and its murderous attacks on ports like Odessa and Mykolaiv—continues to roil global food markets. For now the damage looks containable, but the world’s wheat markets look more vulnerable than ever. No doubt the African leaders will press Vladimir Putin on his intentions when they meet him in St Petersburg on Thursday. Inside Ukraine, this week we will offer an early verdict on the country’s counteroffensive against the Russian invaders.

The Chinese government, meanwhile, is stepping up its own counter-offensive: this time against America’s restrictions of exports to China of cutting-edge technology. Export controls in China are nothing new. But, reports my colleague in Shanghai, only now is the government starting to implement them systematically. The “flurry of lawmaking” adds to the long list of headaches confronting Western firms doing business with China.?

Tech-watchers will find much to chew on this week as Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft report quarterly earnings. This year’s market rally has rested in large part on surging tech valuations. Among those wondering how long it may last are rate-setters at the Fed, who look likely to raise the benchmark rate by a quarter of a percentage point when they meet on Wednesday.?

Many northern-hemisphere readers will be turning their thoughts to their summer break (although most will hope to avoid the heatwaves that continue to scorch southern Europe). With them in mind, this week we publish our special summer double issue, featuring a pot pourri of delights from our sister magazine, 1843. They range from an investigation into Ukraine’s sinking of the Russian flagship Moskva last year to the extraordinary tale of one of the biggest bank heists in history.?

I trust you will enjoy them rather more than one 19th-century reviewer did the poetry of John Keats, which he dismissed as “drivelling idiocy”. You can find this, and many other delectable applications of the critical scalpel, in our lament for the decline of the hatchet job. A more civil reviewing culture, we fear, has become a less interesting one.

Last week I asked you to tell us which industries you thought best placed to resist the ravages of AI. Thanks for some excellent responses. Doubting that believers in divine forces could ever find solace in prayer-leading machines, Geoff Walsh proposes “ministries of religion”. Douglas Durst in New York, meanwhile, turned to ChatGPT for counsel—and found that he disagreed with its response. This week I invite you to send us your favourite examples of wanton critical cruelty, past or present. Emails on this, or anything else that’s on your mind, to [email protected].

Tom Nuttall, Deputy digital editor

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Spain’s election ends in deadlock

For the past week observers of Spain’s election have focused on the prospect of the hard right entering government, for the first time since the return of democracy in 1978. That, as it turned out, was not the main story. Experts in Spain and elsewhere failed to reckon with Spain’s comeback-artist-in-chief: Pedro Sánchez, the Socialist prime minister. As the last votes were being counted on Sunday night, the right- and left-wing blocs were virtually tied—and neither had a clear path to assembling a majority and installing a government. The right-wing bloc, led by the centre-right People’s Party (PP), came first as predicted. The PP took 136 of 350 seats. But polls had predicted it would get close to 150. Added to the 33 seats of the hard-right Vox party, that fell short of the 176 needed for a majority.

China hits back against Western sanctions

In 2019, as China’s trade war with America was heating up, the People’s Daily predicted that China’s monopoly on rare earths, minerals crucial to the production of most modern hardware, would become a tool to counter American pressure. “Don’t say we didn’t warn you,” the Communist Party mouthpiece thundered. For years the bluster was just that. Between 2009 and 2020 the number of Chinese export controls on the books ballooned nine-fold, according to the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries. Yet these restrictions were haphazard, informal and aimed at narrow targets—random warning shots rather than a strategic offensive.

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