Guns 'n' Poses

Junior coalition partner Podemos, under the relatively new leadership of Ione Belarra, has been criticised by Spain's opposition for not towing the government line on Ukraine - but there is no fixed line to oppose. The leading Socialist party (PSOE)'s internal inconsistencies on whether or not to send weapons, as well as its predictable clash with Podemos on the issue, have rocked a coalition already riddled with cracks. But that's unlikely to have much impact on the government's immediate future, because the Conservatives are in no place to exploit its instability.

In opposing the U-turn performed by Pedro Sánchez last week, Belarra has iterated the classic leftist preference for pure diplomacy. Although not without merits, this argument often suffers from a factual ambivalence, an assumption that retaliatory aggression is NEVER justified and the hope that "diplomacy" will prove sufficient to tackle an opponent who has already clearly chosen - and appears committed to - violence.

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the UK's Labour party from 2015 to 2020, once advocated a similar approach to dealing with the unhinged religious fanatics of Isis. There are, of course, differences between the West's conflict with Isis and Ukraine's conflict with Russia - and Belarra isn't as daft as Corbyn. Having said that, her generalised, unqualified faith in the power of diplomacy appears disconnected from the realities of the situation.

Belarra, 34, graduated in psychology in 2012 from the Autonomous University of Madrid, where her fellow students included Irene Montero, partner of Podemos' founder Pablo Iglesias. Montero, currently Equality Minister within the coalition, also opposes the Socialists' latest approach to Ukraine, arguing that weapons will "not [be] effective when it comes to stopping Putin". So far, though, the peace talks in Belarus hardly show Russia to be as keen on negotiation as these two Podemos members are.

Barcelona's leftist mayor Ada Colau, a Podemos sympathiser who favours sending weapons to Ukraine, has warned against the danger of Spain's opposition parties exploiting the coalition's division. Apart from the right's demand that Sánchez sack Podemos members who oppose his stance on Ukraine, though, there's no sign of that happening as yet. The Popular Party's incoming leader, old-school Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has promised to beat the Socialist leader in the next general election, due at the end of next year; but his effectiveness at the national level is an entirely unknown quantity.

In the meantime, Spain's split government can't maintain mutually incompatible poses on how to respond to the Ukraine crisis. That's as much a criticism of the mercurial Socialists as it is of their increasingly ineffective partnership with Podemos.