"Shaw you made a statement by selecting Israel as a comparison. It was an extremely poor choice made with excruciatingly poor taste. Furthermore you know dammed well that had it been anyone else to raise the comparison you would have been all over them like a particularly nasty, antisocial rash. And don't try to deny it. It is your behaviour thru and thru."

Au contraire. I would have agreed wholeheartedly with them.

The comparison is a valid one. If anything, Madrid is constrained by the requirements of the EU apropos of the rule of law and human rights requirements of membership. The politicians are on remand, not pitched into a stinking cell for six, twelve or more months without charge in their hundreds (go on, look it up). I actually think that Spain values its democracy in any case and doesn't need those constraints. Whatever, this is not a matter in which the EU is a major active player and to suggest that Spain's membership is exacerbating the Catalonia issue is without foundation and is downright mischievous. I don't agree with what Spain is doing, but one thing's for sure: due process according to Spanish rule of law will take place, charges will be brought (or not) and an independent judiciary will have the final say. If only all self-styled democracies could say the same.