The Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, was thrilled to learn last night that he has won the coveted European Thundercunt of the Year Award after ordering stormtroopers to beat old ladies and shopkeepers black and blue in Barcelona.

Winning the European Thundercunt competition automatically secures Senor Rajoy a place in the 2017 Thundercunt World Championships.

“It was a tightly fought race this year with several hotly tipped contenders.” A spokesman for the World Thundercunt League told The Herald “we really thought Boris Johnson was in poll position with that bloody stupid bus of his.”

“But then Rajoy goes and calls in the thugs to crush a peaceful, if constitutionally iffy, referendum. It’s a strong play, they hospitalised about a thousand people.”

The victory for Rajoy marks the eighteeth anniversary of the last time a Spaniard held the mantle of supreme European Thundercunt.

On the 26th of April 1937 the Nationalist General, Francisco Franco, in conjunction with Hitler’s Luftwaffe squadron, the Condor Legion, destroyed the Basque town of Guernica in an aerial bombardment killing at least 150 people.

“I am pleased to be able to bring this award back to Spain.” Senor Rajoy told a press conference this morning.

“To be able to do so in the time honoured tradition of Spanish fascism by using the organs of the state to brutalise people peacefully exercising their democratic rights is a dream come true.”

“I just hope nobody in the European Union reads Article 7 of the EU Treaty and decides we’ve stepped over a line and boots us out. We really need their subsidies.”