Will ‘safe pair of hands’ Feijóo deal with far-right Vox and take power in Spain?

Alberto Núñez Feijóo gives a thumbs-up prior to chairing a PP meeting in Madrid last week. Photograph: Chema Moya/EPA

By 11pm last Sunday, it was clear that Spain’s opposition conservative People’s party (PP) had comprehensively routed the ruling socialists in the regional and municipal elections that had followed two weeks of ugly and unedifying campaigning.

The PP had snatched no fewer than six regions and some of Spain’s biggest cities from the socialists’ grasp, much to the delight of the supporters who had descended, flag-waving and jubilant, on the conservatives’ HQ on Génova Street in central Madrid.