An unemployed Spaniard who said he was a ruined businessman rammed a car containing gas cylinders into the headquarters of Spain’s ruling People’s Party in Madrid, triggering a police alert, official spokesmen said. No one was injured.

Prosecutors questioned the former treasurer of Spain’s prime minister Mariano Rajoy’s party yesterday in an investigation launched following new allegations of corruption.

Suicide rates in Catalonia, the region in the north-east of Spain where the tragic Sant Andreu graveyard deaths occurred, have increased by 10% in one year alone and reflect a nationwide trend. Spain is slipping into despair as unemployment rates in the under 25s reach 52%. Overall unemployment is twice that of Ireland’s. Richard Fitzpatrick reports from Barcelona

Spain’s beleaguered prime minister suffered an embarrassing election setback as a poll showed his party trailing ever further behind the opposition conservatives at the national level.

Spanish opposition leader Mariano Rajoy and other politicians today survived a helicopter crash outside Madrid.