Madrid crushes the Catalan independence movement with brutal efficiency

One is the son of a humble baker, whose burning passion for Catalan independence has been all-consuming since he was a boy. The other, a scion of a distinguished Spanish family, is a hard-nosed political operator with a taste for cigars and bullfighting. In the heady days of the referendum, some even dared to dream that the Catalan David would beat Madrid’s Goliath. Yesterday, however, when Mariano Rajoy crushed Carles Puigdemont with merciless efficiency, it was obvious that this was the way it was always going to end.

It was a day of high drama shot through at every turn with irony. Ever since declaring independence on Friday, Mr Puigdemont talked a good fight. In a televised address to his countrymen, he called on civil servants to ‘peacefully resist’ Madrid’s efforts to seize the levers of power in Catalonia, and vowed that he would return to work on Monday unless he was ‘forcibly prevented’. Meanwhile, we can only assume that the idea of escaping to Belgium had already occurred to him.