Leaders' Wives

Who's your favourite? The reason I ask is because this, according to the TV news channels at least, seems to be an important subject in the lead-up to the general election (almost certainly) on May 6th in the UK. For example, the news channels and papers have donated an inordinate amount of coverage over the past couple of days to the forthcoming appearance and interview on ITV1's Trevor MacDonald Meets David Cameron with the blue-blooded Tory leader's missus Samantha; that's her pictured, appropriately enough, on the right above.

In the programme she eulogises, amongst other things, about her old man's brilliance as a husband and father, and about what a great cook he is. But if you were thinking this was just going to be a puff piece, then you couldn't be more wrong. Witness this piece of trenchant criticism: apparently "Dave" makes a terrible mess and isn't very good at clearing up after himself. Oh dear. Has she never thought of buying him a nappy?

Then we have embattled Prime Minister Gordon Brown's wife Sarah (on the left) who famously described her husband as her "hero" at a Labour party conference last year (or was it the year before?), and who has over a million followers of her own on Twitter. Christ, with support like that, maybe the wrong Brown's running for PM.

There's been no word from Nick Clegg's wife Miriam as of yet, but it's surely only a matter of time. Put it this way: I'm a Lib Dem voter but if there's not at the very least an exclusive interview with Mrs Clegg in this week's Grazia or Hello in which she tells us what a treasure he is although his feet don't half pong sometimes LOL, then I will seriously have to reconsider changing my voting allegiance. I mean, come on, Mim old girl, don't you know your public need to hear from you?!

But for a real test of the various spouses devotion to their party-leading other halves, wouldn't it be easier to get them all to compete against each other on Mr & Mrs or something? That way at least we could get the whole vexed question as to who exactly is the number one wife done and dusted in half an hour. I'm sure Derek Batey would be only too happy to come out of retirement to helm this one-off political special. Assuming he's not dead. Which he probably is by now, in fairness.

Anyway, gordon bennett, what a palaver etc. This never would have happened in Glenys Kinnock or Denis Thatcher's day. Or Norma Major come to think of it. We never heard a peep out of any of that lot, mercifully.

It's stuff like the whole wives thing clogging up the news that obscures what should be the real debate at a time like this i.e. what do the parties actually stand for, and what are their policies that we should be taking into consideration when it comes to deciding who to cast our votes for? Even Prime Minister's Questions has degenerated into little more than a slanging match every week (although in fairness it was probably ever thus) and all we seem to get is Cameron & Brown trying to score points off each other while their underlings all laugh sycophantically or derisorily (depending on who's speaking at the time).

Perhaps the forthcoming Presidential Prime Ministerial debates on ITV, Sky & The BBC, featuring all three main party leaders, will help clear things up policy-wise. I doubt it, though, given that they're all being so carefully stage-managed with a 76-point agreement covering everything from handshakes and podiums to the eyeline of the moderators in place for each of the debates. They're really leaving nothing to chance. Gawd help us.

Oops. Bit of politics there. I only really meant to do the leaders' wives joke as well.

The The - Heartland mp3