Paco Robles was a constituent of mine as Labour MP for Ealing North for more than 20 years. I used to sit with him outside his flat in Northolt while he sipped his favourite brandy, drew on a good cigar and recalled his displacement from the Basque country during the Spanish civil war and arrival in Britain in 1937.
Always a man of the left, Paco had a great admiration for Jeremy Corbyn, and asked if I could arrange for them to meet. I did so happily, and when I drove him home afterwards I asked how the conversation – all in Spanish – had gone. He looked rueful and said that Jeremy had problems with his Galician accent, and Paco thought Jeremy spoke Latin American Spanish. Nonetheless, they managed to communicate.
