The Spanish are regularly polled on – amongst other things – the performance of their politicians. Recently, the most effective member of the government was judged to be one of the Deputy Prime Ministers, a woman who revels in the name of María Teresa Fernández de la Vega. As she is very thin and remarkably wrinkly, I doubt this can be put down to sex appeal and my guess is it reflects the fact she’s in the media virtually every day. I’m not sure she has any real executive authority but she’s certainly very prominent. Yesterday, for example, it was announced Mr Zapatero had offered her the top of the PSOE Valencia list. I’m not clear what this means; perhaps that she’ll head the regional government if the PSOE wins the next election there. Of course, I may be very wrong on the reasons for her popularity but, if I’m not, what does this tell us about modern politics?

Another thing I’m not clear on is which government ministries have much sway over things taking place in the regions. Talking to a knowledgeable friend about the age and experience of the Minister of Housing, I learned that this is a weak ministry, with little effective control of how money is spent around the country. He said the Ministry of Health was another one, which was rather endorsed by an announcement yesterday that the Minister is lending her support to a dental scheme which will aim to make treatment more consistent across Spain.

To link these two paragraphs - María Teresa Fernández de la Vega was yesterday reported to be in favour of a controversial housing project in Andalucía which centres on guaranteeing housing for anyone there earning less than 37,200 euros a year. She said she thought economic firmness was compatible with social progress. Which is just the sort of central no-price-attached statement which goes down well with a concerned populace.

Still on politics . . . I found it hard to believe but, crossing the bridge from town yesterday afternoon, I noticed a flier for the Spanish Falange party stuck to one of the posts. In a democracy, I guess I shouldn’t have been taken aback to see evidence of a party associated with Franco and considered to be even further to the right than the opposition PP [“Heirs of Franco”] party is often accused of being. But there it was - telling us that to negotiate with ETA was traitorous and exhorting us to fight against betrayal of Spain by joining the FE de las JONS. There’s even a web site - www.falange.es. But, for the benefit of some readers, I should stress I cite it here as a source of amusement and not because I support their cause. Which is a tad ironic, as extremists of the Right are just as lacking in a sense of humour as those of the Left. En passant, the Falange party got 27,166 votes in the 2004 general elections. Which hardly seems worth bothering about.

Which reminds me – anonymous invective I’ve received from what I presume to be extremist Galician Nationalists has given me the idea of forming the MF Party in time for the 2012 elections. But will we live up to our billing? Will our manifesto go beyond recommending the legalisation of inter-generational relations? And will I be able to match the clever, incisive wit of BNG fanatics? Watch this space. At least one of these challenges should be easy to meet.

Finally, fellow blogger John Chapell in Barcelona says the racing driver Fernando Alonso is highly popular in Spain but considered a jerk elsewhere. I wouldn’t go quite this far. My suspicion is he’s widely seen outside Spain as a genius flawed by a tendency to whinge on the slightest pretext. Cue more invective.