There’s only one thing worse than being a politician, and that’s being married to one. You get all the downsides — unwanted intrusion, public disdain, endless boring functions — with very few of the advantages. In fact, the more successful your partner is, the less you see of each other and the more demanding and lonely your lives become.
Alicia Collinson, a barrister who in her spare time is also the wife of Damian Green, the Conservative MP for Ashford, is publishing a book this week called Politics for Partners: How to Live With a Politician. It is the most salutory handbook imaginable, and will encourage any reader to sign the pre-nuptial contract that I made with my husband: that the only ground for divorce would be if the other stood for Parliament.
It has section headings such as “Don’t suffer in silence on your own” and “Suspend your own ego?” Ego-suspension, in fact, is the theme of the book. No one is interested in your opinion unless it is controversially different from your partner’s, in which case you’re both in trouble. As Collinson writes: “It can be extremely difficult to tread the line between being controversial and being entertaining. When meeting someone for the first time, err on the side of caution.”
Edna Healey, wife of Denis, told me some years ago that politicians’ wives can’t win: “If you say ‘This is what I believe’, people either say ‘She only thinks that because Denis does’ or ‘Fancy Denis Healey’s wife thinking something like that!’ ” Some politicians’ spouses throw themselves into the life but many absolutely loathe it. In 1997 I interviewed Gail Lilley, wife of Peter, who had been a Cabinet minister in the Major administration. She got a little tipsy and began telling me — as the tape recorder whirred — that he had become institutionalised and could no longer look after himself. She then embarked on a wickedly outspoken rant about the horrors of being married to a minister. It was tempting to print the lot, but I took pity on her and excised the most embarrassing bits — so it was a great surprise when she rang me after the piece appeared to berate me for not telling the full, horrific story.
If you marry someone in the knowledge that they intend to become a politician, at least you know what you are letting yourself in for. It is far worse for those, like Gail, who marry a promising banker or lawyer or journalist and end up, ten years later, having to open fêtes and simper at fundraising dinners.
Collinson has some invaluable advice for these ghastly events. For instance, if you go to the same one two years running, they will assume that it is an annual fixture for you. And, as she writes, “everyone has to find their own balance between diligence and exhaustion”. Equally, “helping with the washing-up at every event is another way of storing up difficult expectations”. Start as you mean to go on, or you will regret it. One political partner puts it like this: “The key is to under-promise and over-deliver.”
Collinson also has tips for the inevitable raffles and fêtes. “Unless you plan to take a raffle prize to every event you attend, don’t start the habit and then tail off.” At a constituency fair, head first for the stall selling things that you might actually want, such as books or cakes, then you can visit the other stalls already laden down with bags, which gives you an excuse not to fork out for anything else.
“Don’t judge competitions,” she writes sagely. “You will only please one person and disgruntle the rest. You can, of course, hand out prizes, after another judge has courted the opprobrium of making choices.”
But being a politican’s partner haunts you well beyond the formal constituency activities. “In some places,” Collinson warns, “constituents seem insatiably fascinated by what you have in your shopping trolley. This is a curious feature of being a minor local celebrity: try not to let it irritate you. Even if you think you have kept yourself nicely anonymous in a big supermarket, you will often find people saying later that they saw you there. Remember this when the children are playing up or you have been treated badly by a shop assistant and feel like making a fuss.”
At least if you’re Madonna or Kate Moss you can’t complain if people point at you in Tesco. But if you are merely the spouse of a local MP, what hell it must be! Even performing the most mundane task you are constantly at risk of exposure.
A whole chapter is devoted to handling the news frenzy if your partner is involved in a scandal. If the photographers are on your doorstep, “attempt to keep an enigmatic smile on your face”. Don’t be tempted to tell your side of the story: “If in doubt, buy some of the tabloid Sunday papers and see the way they write about other people in your position.”
Above all, don’t tell people what you really think — unlike Collinson’s three-year-old daughter, who once piped up during one of Green’s speeches: “Why is Daddy being so boring?”
Least likely arrest of all
I was so shocked when I heard of Ruth Turner’s arrest. It was not so much the indignity of the dawn knock at the door as the fact that she was arrested at all.
Of course, I haven’t seen the evidence so maybe I shall be proved horribly wrong. But in the few years in which I have known her, Turner has appeared to be quite the most conscientious, upright figure I have come across in all my years covering politics.
In fact, I used to wonder how she would cope in the murky world she had joined. She was far more scrupulous than the people around her. There are many in Downing Street, past and present, whom I can imagine doing the occasional dodgy deal or deleting the occasional dodgy e-mail, but Turner isn’t one of them.
If she is charged and convicted, I guess I’ll have to admit how gullible I am. If not, my faith in human nature will be restored.
What a turn-off
Amid all the fuss about racism — or inverted snobbery — on Celebrity Big Brother, let’s remember one thing. Before Jade Goody’s outbursts the audience for this miserable show was just 3.5 million, or 6 per cent of the population. In other words, 94 per cent of us weren’t watching.
Even at its peak, after oodles of publicity, when 8.8 million tuned in to see Goody’s eviction, 83 per cent of us were still not interested enough to do so.
That is quite a result for a show that covered the front pages, created a diplomatic storm and drew comments from both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor.
I think it’s rather cheering.
maryann.sieghart@thetimes.co.uk
