Long division Pedro Sánchez stakes power on polarising deal with separatists

At the end of an investiture debate that had been fraught, savage and bizarre, even by recent standards, the defeated leader of Spain's conservative opposition offered his socialist rival a handshake. It was not accompanied by his warmest wishes. "This was a mistake," said Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the People's party (PP).

- Sam Jones

Given Feijóo's other characterisations of moves Sánchez has made to secure his Spanish Socialist Workers' party (PSOE) another four-year term, "mistake" seemed oddly mild.

Sánchez's decision to accede to the demands of the two main Catalan pro-independence parties who had made their congressional backing for his new government dependent on an amnesty for hundreds of people involved in the unilateral push to secede from Spain six years ago - has proved profoundly divisive.