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Tourism represents about 10% of Spanish GDP, and more than 60% of foreign tourism in Spain comes from just three countries: the UK, Germany and France. The UK alone represents about a third of the total – more than 16 million Brits visited Spain in 2006.

Welcome to the second podcast interview with Edward Hugh about the Spanish economy. Edward is an independent economist based in Barcelona. He is also a prolific blogger and is frequently quoted in the English-speaking financial press as a reliable source on what’s going on in the Spanish economy.

Is it any wonder Spain and the UK are in the state they’re in right now economically? Zapatero, in Spain, and Brown, in the UK – two socialist prime ministers in the middle of a recession – have been accused by their political colleagues of making things up as they go along.

Britain’s financial press – with the FT and the Economist leading the way – has achieved something Spanish politicians haven’t managed since the start of the recession: to bring the Spanish media almost together in defence of Zapatero.

The socialist mayor in the northern Spanish town of Logroño has decided to publish the town’s official 2010 calendar and celebrate the birth of Mohammed and Pakistan’s Independence day, but not Christmas or Spain’s national holiday.

The UK’s Labour government, like others around the world, has now spent billions of pounds on bailing out banks and trying to stop the British economy sliding into even deeper, darker economic trouble. But how are they going to pay it all back?

Shocking unemployment figure for 2009 in Spain – 3,923,603 officially unemployed people. This follows the New York Times’s exposé of Spanish youth unemployment last week, which now stands at 42.9% of young people between the ages of 16 and 24.

Two Labour party members of Parliament – former defence secretary Geoff Hoon and former health secretary Patricia Hewitt – have challenged Gordon Brown’s leadership as Prime Minsiter.

The prize for the most eye-catching post title of the day goes to Melanie Phillips at the Spectator for ‘Lawfare in Londonistan’: once again, Londonistan is the weakest link in the battle to defend those democratic traditions against attack – both from without and from within.

Have European leaders not been reading the news for the last two or three years? Have they not seen what Zapatero has done to the Spanish economy? Maybe they have no choice about it. Nor do the people of Europe.