Recommended

Three related pieces: in the Economist, "Why is Spain so Corrupt?"; in El País, "Por qué hay tanta corrupción en España," of which the former is a gloss, by the political scientist Victor Lapuente Giné; and a short opinion piece in today's Vanguardia by Jordia Barbeta on the parliamentary representation of those Catalans who have been without electricity since last Monday's snowfall. Barbeta points out that the snowed-in towns have no effective voice in Barcelona or Madrid because they are without local representation. Barbeta doesn't suggest scrapping proportional representation as practised in Spain; I do.