First there was the prime minister at Leveson, having to consult with his wife Samantha to clarify a (non-)answer he gave to the question of whether he saw Rebekah Brooks and her husband "every weekend" at their Oxfordshire home because "Mrs Cameron keeps perhaps a better weekend diary record than I do". Then there was Ed Miliband stumbling over a question about his family finances because "my wife takes quite a lot of charge of this … I think we use an overdraft" and the weekly shop ("Erm … She is better at that than me"). And now there is agriculture minister Jim Paice who, when asked the cost of a pint of milk during an interview about planned protests by dairy farmers at the crippling cuts to their wholesale price, replied: "No, because my wife buys most of it." Though he did add that he had checked that it was responsibly sourced.
What are we to make of this? Is it simply second nature to politicians to deflect difficulties on to the nearest feasible figure, and it is merely Mrs Politician's bad luck if it happens to relate to domestic rather than public matters? Is it telling that the two Tories' answers conjure up a vision of 1950s' wifely servitude – shopping, social secretarying, secret nightly gin and Valium cocktails implied – while Miliband's suggests a more progressive division of labour? Or do they all just suggest that men of a certain age and class are hopeless at organising their lives and/or coping with the modern world?
Anyway, to protect other wives from being similarly flung in front of bullets by unchivalrous spouses, could all politicians please remember: milk averages 46p a pint, bread is £1.20; you can read a calendar too; and if you live in a £1.5m house with a partner earning six figures on top of your ministerial salary, you shouldn't need an overdraft facility at all. Thank you.
