"They piss us off and we have to say it's raining," said the PP's deputy general secretary for organization, Miguel Tellado, on August 4 in one of his usual acid criticisms of the Pedro Sánchez government. The phrase appeared in some headlines, perhaps because it was scatological, but it is the translation of one of the main maxims of Galician nationalism, that of "mexan por nos e temos que dicer que chove", coined by the patriarch of Galicianism, Castelao, to denounce the submission to Madrid. Its use by Tellado is not accidental, rather it is a reminiscence of the universe in which he grew up as a young man, that of Galician nationalism.
The little-known face that has appeared frequently this summer on television speaking from the lectern of the Génova Street headquarters, as part of the large Galician clan that Alberto Núñez Feijóo took to Madrid, is that of a 48-year-old political scientist Ferrol, Miguel Tellado Filgueira. Like his boss, he is a senator by appointment of the Galician Parliament.
Tellado was a leader of the University Student Movement (MEU), a split from the Open Faculty Committees (CAF), which were more along the lines of the BNG. "In the MEU there were people from different backgrounds and a commitment to university action, within the framework of considering Galicia as a nation and monolingualism in Galician", comments an old painting. He explains that in this environment, Tellado managed without any problem. He did have reservations about the Block being able to condition the autonomy of the student organization, which, on the other hand, was key in the MEU. The main reference of this union, the political scientist Xaime Subiela, is today an advisor to the second vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz.
In the environment of the MEU, it was notable that, after finishing his degree and returning to Ferrol, Tellado began to work at Radio Fene, which was one of the great fiefdoms of the BNG. Those who treated him at this time point out that he responded to the search for a job opportunity, like many others later in the region's media. "Miguel was never affiliated with the BNG and it took him a long time to join the PP," says one of these sources.
"He was already a guy thrown forward," says another informant, who does not remember that he had any problems at Radio Fene, where he was from 1998 to 1999, as a collaborator, and later already hired. He went to the newspaper El comarcal, where years later he did the interview that turned his life upside down. He went to Juan Juncal, the PP candidate for mayor of Ferrol. He signed him for the 2003 campaign and for the press office. With the defeat in 2007, he had a brief stint in the Provincial Council, to jump to the Xunta in 2009 as chief of staff of a ministry. In 2012 he was a deputy, in 2014 spokesman for the PPdeG and in 2016, general secretary.
Favored because Feijóo sent the current president of the Xunta and former general secretary, Alfonso Rueda, to Pontevedra, Miguel Tellado's meteoric career was based on his unleashed attacks on the opposition, to the delight of his boss. On the other hand, it was a spectacle to see the faces put on during his speeches by the phlegmatic popular parliamentary spokesman, Pedro Puy Fraga.
“If Feijóo asks for a volunteer to jump off a bridge, before anyone opens their mouth, Tellado has already jumped”, illustrates a senior leader of the PPdeG. He related the BNG, for example, to ETA, due to its alliance with Bildu, and called the PSdeG "indecent" for supporting the central government in Galicia.
The jump to Genoa has to do with the fact that he was the director of the last two autonomous campaigns, with two absolute majorities of the PPdeG, and because of Feijóo's commitment to total control of the organizations he directs, in this case through this political scientist of his full confidence and of his closest collaborator, Mar Sánchez.
