Lives cannot depend on who you voted for

IT'S taken over six months of the pandemic hitting Madrid, harder than any other region in Spain, for two leading politicians to drop their War of the Words and finally sit down to find a solution that will hopefully avoid the massacre caused by Covid19 in the nation's capital in March and April from being repeated.

Spain cannot afford to see the city's icerink converted into a morgue again, it cannot bear to see body bags being taken out of hospitals by the dozen, and it should never have had to contemplate reopening a field hospital at the IFEMA exhibition hall.

But the figures are soaring and something has to be done.

Until this week, the only battle that appeared to be concerning politicians in the capital was not against the virus but against political rivals leading regional, local and national governments.

Back in March, Isabel Díaz Ayuso became the PP's main battle horse against the way the PSOE government was handling the epidemic. One of the main spearheads in her repertoire was the that Madrid regional government ' on its own' would have handled the situation far better than under the joint State of Emergency umbrella imposed during lockdown a mantra taken from the book of Catalan separatist Quim Torra.

Six months down the line, four months after Madrid and the rest of the regions were handed back their authority over public healthcare, and thus the responsibility of controlling the pandemic in their areas, we are back at square one. Madrid is once again the epicentre of the pandemic in its second wave.

Madrid was ' fooled' once by the pandemic', shame on it. Madrid is now being fooled twice... shame on who?

The blame has to be passed on to those responsible at city and regional level. But Madrid, just like London, Paris or Rome, is also a national icon and is regarded as the ' reference' for what happens in the whole nation. As much as the rest of Spain disagrees, there is some truth in Sra Diaz Ayuso's claim that ' Madrid is Spain, and Spain is Madrid'.

So it would only seem logical that the national government should be keen to ensure its flagship is safe in a storm, but instead, the PM and of course the rest of the leftwing government has decided to sit back in a sort of ' they wanted to handle it, let them do it on their own' attitude.

Calls for extra controls at Madrid's Barajas airport the main gateway into Spain have gone unheeded by central government. Madrid wanted to make virus tests obligatory on arrival, but as national airports depend on central government, the answer was ' we are doing enough by WHO standards' so temperature checks it is.

Of course, it would be unfair to lay all the blame on politicians. As every large city in the world, Madrid has many virtues, and sadly in this case, many defects. The southern area of the city has traditionally been regarded as the ' poorer' Madrid.

These areas also include larger immigrant populations and, sadly, they are forced to live in small accommodation and in many cases with several families in one small flat. Of course, when social distancing is the big issue, this is a big problem.

Southern Madrid is also the working class area and, as we all know, tends to veer towards the left when facing a ballot box.

So unavoidably, we're back to politics. It must be noted that the protests against this week's local lockdowns have been led by... you guessed right: local Podemos and other leftwing groups sitting on the city hall council opposition seats.

So far, the ' richer' districts in north and eastern Madrid have dodged the lockdown, but Sra Díaz Ayuso has said a regionwide lockdown could be in place soon if figures don't start falling.

It goes without saying again that the vote tends towards the right in those districts.

So sadly, once again, your chances of surviving this pandemic in Madrid has a lot to do with whom you vote for it shouldn't be the case, but the facts prove otherwise.