This week the British Prime Minister Teresa May appeared on a lightweight daytime tv show with her husband, Philip. They didn’t talk about politics but talked about the mundane chores of daily life and how a powerful leader shares these with her partner.
Teresa and Philip claimed that he does “the boys’ jobs”,
such as taking out the bins. By
the way, don’t tell my wife that taking out the bins is a boys’ job. You have to wake up very early in order to
catch the bin lorry. As everybody knows,
boys need more sleep.
It seems that Teresa May is worried that people see her as a
cold politician and not as a human being.
So appearing on tv to discuss domestic chores with her husband might
make the electorate see her as a normal person just like them.
But it is a risky strategy for a politician seeking election
to allow the tv cameras a glimpse into their family life. What if their family have some habits which
seem normal within the family because they have been doing them for years, but
which will seem ridiculous to outsiders?
Does your husband pick his nose and then flick away what he has found
when he thinks that nobody is watching?
Does he wear socks with holes in the toes? What would it do for the politician’s career
if their husband was caught with some such embarrassing habit?
Philip May seemed to do quite well on tv. He didn’t do anything stupid, or
exciting. He just sat there and looked
like rather an ordinary man, which was probably the whole aim of appearing on
tv.
Some people, though, did notice that Teresa and Philip had
developed something of a “pair look”.
They had similar fashion sense, and even used gestures in a very similar
way to each other. The pair look happens
to many couples that have been together for a long time. Perhaps the wife starts to buy more and more
of the husband’s clothes, or vice versa.
Perhaps they just spend so much time together that the other person’s
dress sense and gestures seem so normal that the two different styles start to merge.
In any case, we had better get used to our pair look Prime
Minister. With the main opposition
Labour Party stuck with an unpopular leader, it seems like she and Philip will
be around for another five years.
I’m off to get ready for bed. My wife has bought me a lovely new pair of
fluffy pink pyjamas which will keep me nice and warm – and very stylish too,
she says.
Vocabulary:
lightweight – of a conversation, topic etc., not serious;
trivial
mundane – boring and everyday
a chore – a small everyday task
a bin – a place where you put rubbish, trash etc.
the electorate – all of the people who can vote
or vice versa – or the other way around
to
merge – for two things to start to join together and become one
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