Mum's the word
At last we have a leader of the country whose choice of shoes, dress sense and hairstyle can rightfully become the legitimate focus of our attention. We won’t have to shout reasoned arguments at the tele when she is defending the impossible and proposing the preposterous. Instead, we will distract ourselves from the hard reality she is describing by commenting on her hairstyle and her dress sense.
Thank goodness we can get back to trivialities instead of grappling with serious issues.
What a relief it will be that we no longer have to worry ourselves about the points of the argument or about who is right and who is wrong. We won’t have to listen to the bores blathering on about the best way to annoy the French/suck up to Angelica Merkel/stop the Russians invading Cyprus or figure out how we will keep our shops open and put bread on the table.
‘The Woman’, will soon become, ‘That Woman’ and then, ‘Not Her Again’, as she wades deeper into the shambles left by the blokes who ran off when they realised how big a mess they had created. They were like a teenager who leaves his room in a total shambles knowing his Mum will tidy up after him. More appropriately, she is the one to unblock the toilet after last nights revellers had coughed up more than the system could cope with. Someone has to get her hands around the u-bend.
We can relax once Mum arrives. You can almost smell the bleach and see the marigolds, dusters and brushes sticking out of her travel bag. No matter what the mess, Mum will save us, or maybe not.
This time Mum cannot use the phrase, ‘wait till your father gets home and hears what you’ve done’. He won’t be coming home. She has to deal with the mess without recourse to the useless lumps who created it. All we have to do is comment on her hair or her choice of shoes; our way of keeping her in her place.
Before her coronation, our new PM was accused of lacking vital Mum qualities because she was childless; in the eyes of some, a severe drawback. For instance, she might think squabbling sibling MPs can be separated and pacified through logic and pragmatic reasoning. When she was “getting on with the job”, she was not interrupted by hungry mouths demanding to be fed at inconvenient times of the day or night. She has not changed smelly napkins, so how will she deal with shitty colleagues who fail to measure up to her standards? Measured and logical approaches to problems and to maintaining momentum have never been tempered in the fiery furnace of getting three children out to school on a Monday morning. She still has to discover the emptiness of the warning, ‘that is the last time I will tell you. The next time you will be sorry.’
As a non-Mum she has no experience of having a favourite son to spoil so does not know how to be unfair and may want to treat everyone the same way. She will not be dragged down by the vanity and daftness of offspring. She cannot be accused of smoothing the path for her own kids, while others have to struggle. There will be no way to highlight the illogicality of her decisions by putting the needs of her children before her politics. Critics will not pillory her for employing a nanny as a substitute mother while she pursues the path to glory and power. Leaving a child in a pub will not be one of her faults.
She has one big disadvantage in being childless. It is doubtful that at the end, when she is worn out and cast aside, that some little head will worm its way into her tightly folded arms and say, “I really love you. You’re the best, Mum”.
Whatever we face, we can only pray that she will be a decent human being and a superhuman politician who will get us through the grim years that lie ahead. Acting like a Mum would be the last approach we want just now.
