Do we like them?

Do we like Pedro Sánchez?

Our score: 6 out of 10. Good record on migrants and LGBTQ+ rights with one contested party policy, but a housing failure and a legal storm around his circle hold the score back.

Sánchez leads Spain's Socialist-led minority government, and lately he's made himself Europe's loudest voice against Donald Trump. Spain refused to let the US use two military bases for its offensive on Iran, and Sánchez said the war made the world less safe. He had already knocked back NATO's demand for defence spending of 5 per cent of GDP in mid-2025, and Trump has since called Spain a loser. The sources I could open didn't cover his upbringing, so this is a column about the politician, not the kid.

The family trouble is the big stain. His brother David Sánchez was convicted in July 2026 of administrative misconduct over a tailor-made local government job and banned from public office for nine years. His wife, Begoña Gómez, will stand trial for influence peddling and embezzlement over a university chair she co-directed, with the other charges dismissed. She and Sánchez deny the allegations, and his office calls the case political, driven by a complaint from a far-right-linked group.

Then came the party. In late May 2026, Civil Guard officers went into the PSOE's Madrid headquarters to collect documents in a sealed part of the case on Leire Díez, the party's former fixer, who is under investigation for influence peddling. The party said it cooperated fully, and the judge is working out whether she acted alone or on instructions. Euronews counts nine cases swirling around his circle, including a Supreme Court conviction of the attorney general, but nothing I read says Sánchez himself is charged or accused of wrongdoing.

On the harm test he mostly comes up well. He defended the regularisation of about 500,000 undocumented migrants, saying Spain is “first and foremost a welcoming country”. The 2023 trans law, letting people 16 and over self-identify, passed under his government, and in May 2026 he posted that Spain led Europe's Rainbow Map. The stain is Dec 2024, when his party's congress backed limiting female sport to people of female biological sex and dropping the Q+; trans advocates called it dangerous, though the report quotes no personal statement from him.

The recent drama is housing. Rents have roughly doubled in a decade, protests drew tens of thousands after a televised eviction, and parliament voted down his government's relief measures. Sánchez said he had fallen short of promises, admitting part of the social majority is dissatisfied, then called the vote. In a record-breaking TV interview he predicted a win, while the PSOE pitched interest-free loans for first-time buyers.

The good stuff is real. He took on a US president over bases and trade threats, which wasn't free for Spain. He argued for dignity for migrants who already live, work and send kids to school in the country, even as Brussels and the opposition grumbled. And his government's LGBTQ+ record put Spain first on the Rainbow Map, which he celebrated with pride.