If there’s one thing that has always amazed me in politics – it’s the good Tory wife. There was that period in the 80s and 90s when the news was filled with stories of Tory MPs cheating on their wives with an array of sexy young things. More often than not the week would end with a family photo shoot outside a house in Southwest London – “I’m standing by him”.
The public were fed this ridiculous perception of family unity as the ultimate conservative ideal. In reality it amounts to the cheated wife wanting to retain that lifestyle to which she has become accustomed – Good schools. Ironing shirts. The odd charity function.
It is for this reason that I like Cherie Blair.
Despite what we might think about her husband’s politics, she has a successful career of her own and is not afraid to speak her own mind, and I like that in people. She doesn’t follow the campaign trail around like a love sick teenager because she something more important to do, a daytime job, and avoiding the boredom. Also, the idea of her being manipulated by the party spinmeisters is almost laughable.
As expected the tabloid press, genuinely annoyed by her independence, have focused on her not being a looker in the traditional manner. The thing is, Norma Major wasn’t exactly Christy Turlington now was she? A woman that stood smiling in the background for eight years and never uttered a single word, and when her husband was caught screwing another woman behind her back she complied in the classic manner of the good Tory wife – “I?m standing by him”.
Don’t believe any of that Sandra Howard hype either. She’s got yuk all else to do all day but follow her husband around obediently and grin inanely at the cameras outside supermarkets in Kettering. The tabloids say she’s attractive which makes me laugh out loud! She looks like a cross between a Thunderbird puppet and one of those women on the tube that sneers into the Daily Mail, reeks of perfume and gets off the District line at stations like Gloucester Road.