Forget every other reading matter – put down your 250th anniversary copy of Pride and Prejudice and toss Bill Clinton’s thriller, First Gentleman, to one side – because the required reading right now is the extracts now being published from Sarah Vine’s memoir, How Not to be a Political Wife.
It’s about politics in the Cameron era, from the then Mrs Michael Gove, wife of the Education Secretary, who, as such, was the best thing about the Cameron administration. It’s notionally political, but it’s just as much social and personal. If you want proof that the personal is the political, look no further. Politics is about issues, of course; it’s also about competitiveness (Boris), entitlement (Dave Cameron), personal loyalties (Sam Cam) and revenge (T. May).
First off, an apology. I was one of the umpteen columnists who said that Sarah Vine was Lady Macbeth to her husband, after he stood for the leadership of the Conservatives against Boris. It was stupid and ignored, as she observes, the salient fact that grown men are capable of making their own mistakes without the assistance of their wives. Anyway, the figure in front of you in a hair-shirt is me; all I can say is that at that extraordinarily febrile time, we were all tired and emotional.
She has nothing to lose. And that’s precisely why it’s so brilliant
As for the book, How Not to Be a Political Wife, it was written, she observes, because she had nothing to lose. And that’s precisely why it’s so brilliant. She tells it like it is; she vents her spleen. And boy, has she got spleen to vent. She and Michael G were terrifically matey with David Cameron and Sam in the early days of the Cameron ascent, so much so that Sarah was godmother to their daughter Florence, they went on holidays to Ibiza together, shared the school run for their children (though Sarah did most) and generally had a high old time in Chequers when Dave was PM.
When Dave as PM sacked Michael Gove as Education Secretary, the Goves lost £36,000 a year: it mattered
But the problem about hanging out with a couple who are better connected and richer than you is that there’s a cost element. Trying to keep up with the Camerons – endlessly entertaining in intimate suppers at home or in cosy Notting Hill restaurants, costs a fortune. And if you’re living on your salary, well, it’s tricky. So, when Dave sacked Michael G as Education Secretary, demotion was obviously hurtful; it also came at the specific cost of £36,000 a year less in salary. That’s most people’s actual salary.
Then there’s the more poignant element of the story: Sarah Vine’s girl crush on Sam Cam. It’s the usual thing when your friend is prettier, thinner and cooler than you: “The thing is,” she writes, “to be Samantha’s friend was very special. She was kind and loyal, and funny, and honest, and to the point. She loved a drink and a fag, and a laugh, and so did I.” But the problem was that Sam was posh, notwithstanding the art school bohemianism – more so than Dave, a stockbroker’s son – and when Sarah and Michael started getting uppity, it didn’t go down well. It started when Sarah got a column with the Daily Mail, at which point Dave and Sam thought that it should obviously be used to cheerlead for Dave. But a killer element of doubt had already entered into the relationship.
The line was blurred between being a friend and being a help. It’s inevitable when there’s an unequal dynamic in a relationship, but it hurts
“If I helped out with stuff – organising our Ibiza holidays or taking up the slack on the school run, or performing other administrative duties – it was because I cared about them and we were mates. But now the worm of doubt began to creep in: was I a friend or just a fixer? Even worse, was I… staff?”
That came home to her when she was helping out at one of the Camerons’ drinks parties, going around with a bottle of white, when Jeremy Clarkson, without making eye contact, said actually, he’d prefer red. That’s when the line was blurred between being a friend and being a help. It’s inevitable when there’s an unequal dynamic in a relationship, but it hurts.
But that was nothing compared with what happened when Michael Gove and Dave, as PM, parted company over Brexit, with Michael G feeling that Leave was a matter of principle; for Dave, Remain was a matter of expediency. What struck Sarah was the outrage of their former friends. Sam was slitty-eyed livid. It was more than a simple disagreement on an important issue. It was more like, who do these people think they are? Sarah and Michael were, it seems, less friends than in the old Roman sense of the word, clients. At a party, Sam let rip, shattering the girl crush: “It broke my heart”.
If I had to choose one man to take the rap for the mess this country found itself in for the next 20-plus years, I’d put Dave Cameron into pole position
George Osborne too, was incredulous. When the conversation at a party turned to Gove’s defection, he spluttered, according to Vine, “‘But… but… we made Michael Gove. Who was he before? He owes us his whole bloody career! How can he not support us?’ Not only was this patently, foully, untrue, but never have I heard so pithily proved our eternal suspicion that neither Michael nor I were ever quite good enough for the public school nabobs who made up the true inner circle of David Cameron’s ruling elite.” By contrast, George’s wife, Frances, was kind and natural.
Happily the gloves were off as far as Sarah was concerned. “If I had to choose one man to take the rap for the mess this country found itself in for the next 20-plus years, I’d put Dave Cameron into pole position,” she tells us. Later she observes, quite correctly, that Cameron behaved like a big man baby when it came to the aftermath of the referendum, resigning in a huff when he didn’t get the result he wanted, leaving the party to tear itself apart. The personal was very much the political.
There’s lots else besides – it turned out Theresa May was foul to Michael Gove when she sacked him and then there’s the whole business of the Goves’ own marriage disintegrating. Oh and Boris’s competitiveness: crushing the junior Gove during a fun sports event. But these extracts from How Not to Be a Political Wife could be called, like Graham Greene’s novel, The Human Factor. It turns out the best memoirs are by those with nothing to lose.
Melanie McDonagh is a columnist for The London Standard
