It has become the catch-phrase of the movement against austerity in Spain but que se jodan is not a phrase that you’re likely to learn in a Spanish evening class. Loosely translated, it means: F*** them! The author of this phrase is Andrea Fabra, an MP from the Partido Popular, Spain’s right-wing ruling party.

During the announcement of the latest cutbacks in the Spanish parliament on 12 July, the MPs of the governing party applauded them one by one; when it came to cuts in unemployment benefit, Ms Fabra went one better and shouted out these hateful words. Just like John Terry, she appears not to be altogether familiar with the powers of modern technology and the chances are that she did not realise that within hours her words would be on YouTube for all the world to hear. She has half-heartedly tried to explain that her remarks were directed to the socialist opposition rather than to the unemployed themselves; no-one believed her and with the unemployment rate standing at 25% she has made a lot of instant enemies for herself.

Fabra herself comes from the dynasty that has ruled the province of Castellon for much of the last 140 years and the kindest thing to say about them is that they don’t really get democracy. Her father, Carlos Fabra, resigned from office last year over legal charges relating to corruption. His main claim to fame is that he has built an airport where no aeroplane has ever landed and erected a statue to himself in the access road; at 24 metres it is nearly as big as the monument at Golspie to another friend of the poor and dispossessed, the first Duke of Sutherland. The New York Times described the statue in Castellon as symbolic of the behaviour that has led Spain into recession.

The grossness of the Fabra clan and the sense of entitlement which it reflects is only one part of a much bigger story about corruption and political manipulation. The government with which the Fabra clan is connected is hell-bent on making the state as small as possible, regardless of the social consequences. Teachers, firefighters and other public servants have had their salaries cut and many of them have been laid off; a system of co-payment for healthcare has been introduced and people now pay 40% of the cost of their drugs; HIV treatment is being withdrawn from migrants with no resources; VAT has been increased to 21%; the allowance for people who care for disabled friends or relatives is on the way out. Despite these measures, even the government itself does not believe the country will come out of recession until 2014.

The significance of Fabra’s remark is that it reveals the contempt that the ruling party has for the citizenry. Earlier this year, when the Italian minister of welfare announced cutbacks in pensions for the elderly, she was weeping. There were no such tears from the governing party in Spain; only applause and the Fabra profanity. They seem to have no regard for the social fabric that has slowly and painfully been constructed since the death of the dictator Franco in 1975. The sense of a common good achieved through the sharing of services went some way to healing the wounds left from the time of the civil war and the Franco dictatorship.

People have long suspected that the PP, with its long-standing tolerance of corruption, has no interest in the maintenance of this social fabric and the recent behaviour of their parliamentarians has given extra credence to that belief. The Spanish economy, for sure, is in great difficulties but the government is taking this opportunity to pursue another political agenda that is more than just a matter of balancing the books. Were the state to shrink as much as they want, social provision would then be left to the church or the family or possibly no-one at all.

The use of que se jodan undoubtedly feels satisfying to the protestors against the politics of austerity but it represents much more than a mere expression of anger. It is a statement of the fact that people know what the PP government thinks of them; many people here are angered by the UK government’s use of the phrase, ‘We’re All In This Together’, but there is no possibility that any member of the Spanish government could say that. The protestors have taken a term of abuse from the governing party and turned it into an expression of both pride and anger.

Despite the dissatisfaction with the government, there is something of a political vacuum. The main left-of-centre party, PSOE, is still recovering from last year’s electoral defeats; a more left-wing party, IU, is enjoying some electoral success but remains a small and quarrelsome minority; the indignados, who inspired other young people throughout the world, seem less active at the moment; the miners in Asturias have been on strike for eight weeks to save their industry from the impact of austerity; public servants, many of whom have no previous political connection, have taken to the streets in their hundreds of thousands.

There is a growing sense of resistance to the austerity fundamentalists and their cronies in the banks but while there is increasing solidarity between the different tendencies there are, as yet, few signs of a co-ordinated political strategy. But if there is anyone in the Spanish government with a long-term view, they ought to be worried about how they can continue to govern such an angry population. It may be sometime before the anger transforms itself into something more politically coherent but it will, as it must. In the meantime, Que se jodan.

Bob Cant is a writer who travels frequently to Spain