Seated at a cafe table shaded by a plane tree in the Passeig de Lluis Companys, an independentist President of the Generalitat of Catalonia who was convicted of rebellion and executed by firing squad at Montjuic Castle in 1940, I was quietly recovering from the alarums and excursions of…

Having spent the past few days in Barcelona, observing the Catalan independence referendum, I find that a unilateral declaration of independence is not only apparently soon to be made (within 2 days of the referendum in accordance with the Referendum Act) but the Spanish police who were sent in…