What Pedro Sanchez should really be apologising for

Spain has approved a pointless amendment to its constitution, replacing the word ‘handicapped’ with the phrase ‘persons with a disability’. Not only did Socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez, who never says sorry for genuine oversights, apologise for the delay in making this happen, but he also announced that he regards himself as having thereby paid a ‘moral debt’ to the country.

The notion that this semantic tweak represents major constitutional change, let alone some kind of moral progress, is risible. Is this what is really wrong with Spain at the moment? Is this – finally! – the apology from Sanchez that’s been so long coming? Is this the constitutional issue at the centre of the country’s most complex political problem, which Sanchez himself inflamed just a couple of months ago? To believe that the answer to any of those questions is ‘yes’ is to be as out of touch with Spanish politics as Sanchez apparently is himself.