Yolanda Díaz, one of Spain’s deputy prime ministers, raised eyebrows during last summer’s election campaign when she arranged to be filmed doing the ironing. ‘I love ironing’, she announced virtuously. ‘I spend hours, almost every day ironing’, she went on, warming to her theme. ‘When I get home from work’, she concluded with evident self-satisfaction, ‘I iron my clothes and everyone else’s.’

Now the 52-year-old Labour Minister in Spain’s minority left-wing government has irritated even more people by suggesting that the nation’s restaurants should close earlier: ‘It’s madness to carry on extending opening times; a restaurant still open at 1 o’clock in the morning is not reasonable’, she declared. ‘After 10 o’clock at night the working hours are nocturnal and, therefore, have certain risks. They have mental health risks’, she added earnestly.

The hours Spanish restaurants keep are certainly remarkable. Half a century ago when I was doing A-level Spanish I was astonished (and delighted) to learn that they didn’t even open until nine in the evening; the nightlife sounded wonderfully exotic and romantic – a world away from Birmingham in the 1970s. When Spain joined the European Economic Community in 1986 many predicted that the timetable would in time become more like that of northern European countries. In fact, however, just the opposite has happened. Enter a Spanish restaurant at 9 p.m. nowadays and you’re likely to find the place empty; it only starts to get busy a couple of hours later.

This state of affairs seems to bother some Spanish politicians a lot more than it bothers the rest of the populace. The left often refer to northern European Union countries as somehow self-evidently better than Spain. ‘It is obvious’, Díaz added, as though this settled the matter, ‘that the timetables in our country are very different from those in Europe. It is not normal’.

Enter a Spanish restaurant at 9 p.m. nowadays and you’re likely to find the place empty

Restaurant owners, however, were quick to point out that it is precisely because Spain is different in such respects that it remains an attractive tourist destination. The leisure and entertainment employers’ association ‘España de Noche’ (‘Spain by Night’) said early closing would be suicidal; the nightlife is one of the country’s main attractions. Others suggested that the proposal ‘would only benefit our competitors in the tourist market’ by removing ‘one of the most unique and special values of the Spanish lifestyle’. It’s an important consideration: Spain is the second-most visited country in the world after France and tourism is one of the main drivers of the economy.

A restaurant owner I spoke to said that obviously everyone would like to have their evenings and weekends free but in the hotel and catering business you have to expect to work during other people’s leisure time: ‘The schedules do not respond to a whim of the employer but to the demand of the customers.’

And that demand is determined in part by Spain’s climate. In the summer the midday heat is so intense that the streets are often more crowded at two in the morning than two in the afternoon; after a long siesta it’s only natural that people want to dine late. An outraged presenter on one of Spain’s main radio stations demanded to know who Yolanda Díaz was to be telling him what time he had to have his dinner, predicting that next she’d be telling everybody what time to go to bed.

Already the right-wing parties are heaping criticism on the government for the hugely unpopular amnesty it proposes to give Catalan separatists. Meanwhile a new corruption scandal over procurement of Covid masks is blowing up. It’s difficult to understand why the Labour Minister should have chosen this moment to annoy the hospitality sector too.

Perhaps most vociferous in her opposition has been Isabel Díaz Ayuso, right-wing president of the Madrid region, well-known for her joie de vivre and enthusiastic defence of the capital’s restaurants and bars. ‘Spain’, she wrote, ‘has the best nightlife in the world, with its streets full of life and freedom. They [the government] want us to be puritanical, materialistic, socialist, soulless … without restaurants – just because they happen to feel like it.’ She signed off sarcastically: ‘Bored and at home.’

She may have been at home but, unlike the Labour Minister, it’s difficult to imagine her doing the ironing.