WORLD AT FIVE

Dark days for Europe’s centre right

Mainstream parties have lost their way in an increasingly fragmented political landscape. Graham Keeley and Oliver Moody report

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is planning to retire from front-line politics after electoral setbacks
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is planning to retire from front-line politics after electoral setbacks
FILIP SINGER/EPA
The Times

Tourists queue to enter the imposing 16th-century palace where Felipe II is said to have planned how the Armada would destroy Elizabethan England.

In the splendour of El Escorial, the king received the news of the defeat of the “invincible” fleet at the hands of the English navy, presaging the slow decline of Spain in centuries to follow.

The less grandiose surroundings of the nearby town could be about to bear witness to another fall: the collapse of the mainstream right in Spanish politics.

The Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial near Madrid, Spain
The Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial near Madrid, Spain
GETTY IMAGES

El Escorial falls under the Madrid regional government which, recent polls suggest, could be lost to the left after 24 years in the hands of the Popular Party (PP) when voters head for the polls in local, regional and European elections