11:50am Wednesday 17th March 2010
By Sharon Griffiths
SO this is what it’s come to... The country is in a mess. There’s an election within weeks. And what is the major talking point? The party leaders’ wives.
Centuries of democracy, decades of feminism and the country’s future could well turn on whether Sarah Brown or Samantha Cameron has the nicest smile, the sharpest dress sense, the biggest following on Twitter.
The closer we get to the election, the less discussion there seems to be of issues and greater concern with the political partners.
The wives, of course, are in an impossible position. The wives of the leaders of the three main parties are all bright, educated, independent women with their own careers. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg’s wife Miriam Gonzalez Durantez is head of the trade department in an international law firm.
But as far as this election goes they might just as well have their frilly pinnies on and be back in the kitchen, living their lives entirely through and for their husbands.
Cherie Blair, who got a lot of things horrendously, embarrassingly, appallingly wrong, was at least a great juggler. She kept her own career going, was a supportive wife and an involved mother. It was a tricky job but of that, at least, she made a decent fist. She set a standard. It should have made it a lot easier for those coming along afterwards.
Sarah Brown, like Michelle Obama in the White House, has made it her job to be Mrs Prime Minister. Not just supporting Gordon – and he seems to need a lot of that – but inviting charities and organisations and interesting people into Number Ten.
From the time she let cameras into her kitchen to see what they had for breakfast, Sam Cameron is increasingly a political personality. There’s talk of the “SamCam effect” and now Miriam Gonzaelez Durantez is never going to be off duty either.
Equal partners? Forget it. Not until the day that one of the male leaders cancels a meeting because his wife needs his supportive presence at her work.
The irony is that many of the wives of the past – think of Mary Wilson and her poetry, or the splendid and greatly underestimated Norma Major – were mocked for being home birds, but in fact they had a great deal more independence, freedom and chance of their own lives than these 21st Century political wives perpetually in the glare of the lens as they further their husbands’ careers.
Gosh, when Edward Heath was prime minister he didn’t even have a wife. The paparazzi had to content themselves with pictures of his boat.
No fun at all.
In other walks of life we have long got used to the idea that the wives aren’t automatically part of the package. Even the wives of vicars and farmers are entitled to their own lives and careers, so why not those of politicians?
Buy One Get One Free is an outmoded custom. It’s even being phased out in supermarket as a terrible waste of resources. Time to get rid of it in Westminster too.
And then we can get on with thinking about what really matters.
“SO,” asked George, a retired police officer, at a convivial lunch in Ferryhill on Sunday, “if a man speaks in a forest where no one can hear him, is he still wrong?”
The wives, laughing, answered that one in less than a nano second.
Minutes later, the men were still looking puzzled...
BUT we will never have true equality until the issue of basic plumbing is addressed.
I have long considered that Mother Nature must, in fact, have been a man. Why else should women need twice as long in the loo as the chaps?
Bit of a design fault there. And as most architects are still men, we still get far fewer loos than we need.
All Nippon Airlines are planning to introduce women-only loos on their planes. Nice thought, as long as they don’ t introduce men-only loos too.
It’s always better to have a man in front of you – they might be messy but they’re quick. A long queue of women is enough to make you hate the sisterhood.
But with segregated loos, how will the Mile High Club work ?
If the couple in front ask for extra blankets, don’t look too closely...
WOMEN are better than men at ironing, says new research on behalf of an indigestion treatment.
No, that’s nothing to do with biology.
An iron fits into a man’s hand as easily as into a woman’s. Men just need more practice. Give it to them.
FOR a year, my friend Lizzie has been planning a trip to Hong Kong to see her youngest son who’s working out there. Yes, she’s due to fly out with BA in the first day of the strike and back on the last day.
She is usually sympathetic to strikers. But not this time. Above all, like thousands of others she has sworn she will never fly with BA again. Is this really what Unite want?
FRANCE’S First Lady, Carla Bruni has sparked off a huge ageing debate because she was photographed at the weekend looking a little tired.
Former model Carla is a very attractive woman. Remember that rear view of her in a dress so slinky that it made most men pant with desire and most women sob in envy?
Yes, I know we all look younger now, or try to, at least. But it still seems a little cock-eyed that a woman of 42 is news because, well, she looks like a woman of 42.
And that is not Carla Bruni’s fault.
CART before the horse time – under new Government guidelines, parents who cheat by giving false addresses to get their children into the best state schools will be prosecuted.
No. What we should be doing is suing the authorities that allow schools so bad that parents will lie and cheat and even move house to prevent their children going there.
The parents didn’t create the situation, the Government and education authorities did. And they are the ones who should be in the dock.
IN a new scheme planned by the Government, secondary school pupils are to face an annual health test, with warning letters sent home to parents if children fail. Headline writers are already screaming defensively about “health police”. They clearly never came across our school nurse.
Back in the Sixties, we had an absolute tyrant who came every year, inspected us for nits, stripped us down to our underwear, told us if we were fat, grubby, smelly or slouched. She would send the smelliest offenders into the showers before she would examine them and then gave them brisk instructions on how, even if their homes had no bathroom or hot water, they could keep themselves clean. She made us touch our toes and laughed at those who couldn’t.
The tools of her trade were a loud voice, cold hands and public humiliation.
We lived in fear of her so, sadly, she was probably very effective.
DAVID BECKHAM – homes in England and US – is flown from Italy to Finland for the operation on his Achilles’ tendon. Presumably, the surgeon in Finland is the best in the world for the expensive bit of sporting flesh that is Beckham. But I’ll never again complain about having to go as far as Newcastle or Leeds for treatment.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/trade_directory/