Power on the Defensive: From Rainy Manchester to Madrid Purges

The rain falling in the Longsight and Levenshulme districts washes away the remnants of political self-confidence from the British left. What is happening in Manchester goes beyond the boundaries of local electoral folklore. We are observing a systemic turning point where the establishment – from London, through Stuttgart, to Madrid – is moving into a deep defensive.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, instead of managing the state from Downing Street, is wading through the mud of the Gorton and Denton constituency. This is a symbolic image of the condition of modern executive power in Europe. Governments no longer create reality; they desperately try to keep up with its disintegration.

Managing the Micro-crisis. The hegemony of the Labour Party in North West England, built over decades on a working-class ethos, is colliding with a new political arithmetic. The threat is asymmetric and comes from two sides simultaneously. From the left flank, the Green Party is attacking, scoring points against the government's moderate course. From the right, as Bloomberg notes, Reform UK under the leadership of Nigel Farage is going on the offensive.

The situation in Manchester is a litmus test for a broader phenomenon. Lucy Fielder from Reuters uses the term that support for Labour is „evaporating”. February 24th — The publication date of analyses in The Independent and New Statesman marks the moment when local by-elections grew to the rank of a referendum on the Prime Minister's leadership. The head of government's involvement in the campaign of candidate Angelika Stogia is an act of political desperation, not a demonstration of strength.

Traditional working-class parties in Western Europe, such as the British Labour Party or the German SPD, have been losing their iron electorate for years. This process, known as Pasokification (after the Greek party PASOK), involves the outflow of voters to more radical or populist groups, forcing leaders into a constant struggle for political survival even in historical bastions.A similar mechanism of elites detaching from their voter base can be observed in Baden-Württemberg. Andreas Stoch, a leading politician of the SPD, provided the perfect fuel for anti-establishment sentiment. His visit to a Tafel facility in Bühl, which ended with instructions to his chauffeur regarding the purchase of French delicacies, is the definition of an image disaster.Institutional Atrophy. The problem is not the fact of buying expensive food itself, but the staggering inability to read the social context. Andreas Stoch, explaining himself later in the „Badische Neueste Nachrichten”, used a phrase about „marching into a trap”. „Ich bin da in einen Fettnapf marschiert” (I marched straight into a trap/blunder there.) — Andreas Stoch. This „trap” is, in reality, the chasm between the daily lives of social assistance beneficiaries and the lifestyle of their political representatives.

Even more dangerous signals are coming from Spain, where the crisis is affecting the very core of the security apparatus. The resignation of José Ángel González, known as „Jota”, from the position of police operational director, reveals structural pathology. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska admitted directly before a parliamentary commission that victim protection protocols had failed. „Es evidente que algo falla si la víctima no recurrió a ellos” (It is obvious that something is failing if the victim did not resort to them [the protocols].) — Fernando Grande-Marlaska.

The wave of resignations in the Spanish police – from Alcalá de Henares to Lérida – indicates systemic permission for abuse. The case of Commissioner Antonio José Royo Subías, dismissed after six days due to a 2003 sentence, proves a lack of elementary personnel vetting. Institutions that are supposed to guard the legal order are themselves becoming a source of lawlessness, undermining citizens' trust in the state as a guarantor of security.Flight Forward. In the face of these crises, the government's reaction is to close ranks and aggressively control the narrative. In Madrid, Regional President Isabel Díaz Ayuso is carrying out a purge in the structures of the PP. The resignation of Education Minister Emilio Viciana and the marginalization of the „Los Pocholos” group is an attempt to consolidate power before appearing in the Madrid Assembly scheduled for March 5th.

Ayuso defines these actions as a „reorganization,” rejecting the term „crisis.” „No es una crisis, sino una reorganización para fortalecer el proyecto que los madrileños eligieron por mayoría.” (It is not a crisis, but a reorganization to strengthen the project that the people of Madrid chose by majority.) — Isabel Díaz Ayuso However, this is a besieged fortress strategy. Eliminating internal opposition and promoting loyalists like Alfonso Serrano aims to set the political scene in stone rather than solving the region's substantive problems.

An equally disturbing form of „defense” has been adopted by the German secret services. The federal government, responding to an inquiry from MP Martina Renner, officially sanctioned the creation of fake social media profiles by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). The ministry headed by Nancy Faeser argues that this is necessary to fight extremism and Russian disinformation.

The Berlin government's argument is based on the assumption that the end justifies the means. However, as Renner notes, impersonating journalists or activists undermines trust in the entire digital space. The state, while fighting disinformation, becomes a producer of it itself. The lack of transparency regarding the scale of these operations and their budget makes the line between intelligence and public opinion manipulation dangerously fluid.Counterargument and Perspectives. One could argue that the actions described are evidence of the efficiency of democratic systems. After all, Starmer is fighting for every vote, Stoch apologizes, and compromised police officers in Spain are losing their positions. Is this not proof that mechanisms of control and accountability are still working, and the media is effectively keeping an eye on those in power?

Such a view, however, is superficial. These reactions are only forced by external pressure or the threat of total disgrace. They do not stem from internal corrective mechanisms, but from the fear of losing influence. The resignations in the Spanish police occurred after the cases were publicized by the media and lawyers, not as a result of internal audits. Stoch's apology appeared only after a wave of online criticism.

The future is painted in colors of further polarization and the erosion of trust. If the Labour Party loses in Manchester, Starmer's position will be permanently weakened, opening the way for populists from Reform UK. In Germany, the March 8th elections in Baden-Württemberg will show whether voters will forgive the Social Democrats for their elitism. In Spain, Ayuso's consolidation of power may lead to an intensification of the conflict with the central government.

Power in Europe today is not strong by the force of its arguments, but by the force of its inertia. Politicians like Starmer or Ayuso are not so much solving problems as trying to survive the next news cycle. The real challenge is not winning a by-election or silencing internal party opposition, but rebuilding the broken bond with a reality in which pâté is not the most important topic of the day.

Perspektywy mediów: Left-wing media (The Guardian, New Statesman) focus on the moral aspects of power and the need to clean up structures, seeing crises as an opportunity to renew standards. Right-wing and business media (Reuters, Bloomberg) analyze these events through the prism of government stability and opportunities for new political forces, such as Reform UK, to take over the electorate.