Irene Montero, from 'we never wanted seats of power' to a Range Rover in Las Matas

From 'we don't want seats of power' to a Range Rover with a police acompañante in Las Matas

What remains of the rhetoric that promised never to cling to the perks of office? The newspaper archive answers with an uncomfortable bill: the same leader who claimed her party had no appetite for public office appears, according to testimony cited in this discussion, dropping her children off at a private school in Las Matas —around 700 euros a month— in a luxury Range Rover and with a police acompañante. The contrast between message and practice is the axis around which a 220-comment debate spanning more than three years revolves.

The core issue is not cosmetic. It is the gap between what is preached and what is practised. And in politics, that gap comes at a price.

The archive that doesn't forgive: 'we never wanted seats of power'

The starting point is an old video in which the then leader stated that her party was not seeking seats in parliament, but rather to 'change people's lives'. That clip is set against other material: the accusation that she has settled into her European Parliament seat, has not given up the mandate and maintains a lifestyle hard to reconcile with the narrative of militant austerity.

The most frequent criticism concerns **housing**. It is argued that the leader solved her own housing problem while the policies she championed —restrictions on new developments, intervention in the rental market— made access to housing more expensive for everyone else. It is the classic *every man for himself* at the public's expense. The argument has traction because it taps into a very specific indignation: that of those who see harsh rules applied to some while exceptions protect others.

The 'only yes means yes' law and the more than 1,100 reduced sentences

The second major block of the debate is judicial. **More than 1,100 sentences against sens offenders are estimated to have been reduced** as a result of the law promoted by the Ministry of Equality. The figure is repeated insistently, alongside a particularly painful case: that of the repeat rapist convicted for the murder of Diana Quer, whose reversible permanent prison sentence the leader reportedly opposed during the legislative process.

Precision is needed here. The review of sentences is a fact documented in court rulings; the minister's direct political responsibility for each reduction is a matter of dispute, not a settled conviction. What the material does contain is something else: the claim that the leader herself was **convicted of calling a man an abuser without evidence** and that she neither paid the corresponding compensation nor gave publicity to the ruling. That is the detail that stings most, because it reverses the roles: the one legislating against verbal violence, convicted of committing it.

Physical wear as political metaphor

Much of the conversation drifts towards appearance. There is talk of weight loss, of fading antiestéticatures, of a deterioration attributed to public exposure and the toll of office. The sharpest reflection in the material is not the one dwelling on looks, but the one pointing to the cost of handing over one's youth and one's children's upbringing to the political front line. *Being in the spotlight wears you down*, one comment aptly sums up, deserving more attention than most.

There are also those who point to aesthetic hypocrisy: the same leader who fights beauty standards and fatphobia fits, on this reading, into the very standards she claims to reject. The criticism is old and somewhat unfair, but it circulates.

The pact with power and the suspicion over the electoral roll

The final stretch of the debate leaves the personal plane and enters the institutional one. It is claimed that Pedro Sánchez's government and its partners seek to alter the electoral roll to entrench themselves despite the corruption cases attributed to them. It is a serious accusation that appears in the material as political suspicion, not proven fact, and should be read as such.

Added to this is the historical comparison with communist leaders who ended their careers with an official car and acompañante while party members waited years for a standard production car. The analogy is more of a jab than analysis, but it explains why the narrative of the self-fighting establishment has lost steam among those who once bought into it.

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In the end, the question hanging over the whole affair is not whether her looks hold up or whether the rhetoric ages badly. It is whether anyone still believes the Range Rover and 'we don't want seats of power' can fit in the same sentence. Judging by the archive, no.