Pedro J. Ramírez is a flamboyant character who has been a thorn in the side of Spanish politicians for years. He runs (ran) El Mundo newspaper, which he helped found 25 years ago, and has edited ever since.
Conservative in nature, he’s always backed the PP (although he fell out with Aznar over Iraq), and redoubled his efforts against the PSOE after they leaked a sex tape of him with a prostitute, which for a time made him the laughing stock of Spain. (Stockings and suspenders were involved, I am given to understand).
He eventually got several senior PSOE politicians in trouble with the courts over the leaking.
However, in recent times, possibly due to falling circulation and a change in the sentiment of the popular reading press, he’s changed El Mundo into a severely critical vehicle of all the major political parties, and has been hunting cases of corruption from across Spain – witness the massive ERE scandal in Andalucia which his newspaper helped to uncover.
All this appears to have come back to bite him on the bottom: he got fired (aka “stood down for personal reasons”) today. He’s been leaving a series of quotations on his personal twitter account which seems to make it clear the reasons behind his departure. His last edition is on Sunday, which should be interesting.
He’s been quoting Manuel José Quintana’s ‘Oda a Manuel José Quintana’ (1797) on his twitter account which runs:
De arena y sangre y de sudor cubierto,
veo al héroe que lucha y lucha en vano.
2) "De arena y sangre y de sudor cubierto/ veo al héroe que lucha y lucha en vano".
— Pedro J. Ramírez (@pedroj_ramirez) January 30, 2014
Looking up this poem on wikipedia, we find it continues
Y al fin cayó: su mísera caída
La libertad rendida
llevó tras sí
Fair enough!
Pero si preguntáis como me siento, contesto: "Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield"
— Pedro J. Ramírez (@pedroj_ramirez) January 30, 2014