Even the most progressive kitchen analyst would have to concede that the room where Ed and Justine (formerly Thornton) Miliband unsuspectingly huddled last week is conspicuously less roomy and appealing than the series of well-appointed domestic spaces in which David Cameron and his wife have posed over the years.
In fact, to judge by the number of times Cameron has invited inspection since he was first filmed washing up in 2006, his strategists consider his engagement with kitchens and their contents, human and otherwise, to be central to his appeal. And at the Daily Mail, where a stylish kitchen has become almost as telling an indicator of probity as investment in a conservatory-style extension, they are not wrong.
Some early surprise at the number of kitchens considered vital by the Camerons (three to the Milibands two) has given way to an acceptance that the PM’s kitchens are an achievement of which we, as a nation, can be proud. Ditto a prime minister whose family, regularly pictured laughing over his freshly baked bread, is prepared to make a stand against the decline of shared mealtimes. “He’s a very good cook,” Mrs Cameron affirms in the Sun, evidently certain the reaction will not be, hasn’t he got anything more important to do? As Britain’s influence diminishes and her armed forces decline, at least we can boast a leader whose batterie de cuisine can withstand unrelenting scrutiny, even to the point of welcoming Michelle Obama.
The contrast with the (alleged) Miliband kitchen has proved that there is, after all, still something to choose between the main political parties. One comes with a swank kitchen, or kitchens; one does not. It hardly signifies that, as an intimate of the Milibands controversially claimed, the galley space is only their lesser kitchen, used – presumably when the couple are too busy to use the stairs – for making “tea and quick snacks”.
Even if it were only used to fill the second-best cat bowl every 29 February, the Camerons would have ripped out the humble Miliband snack-station within seconds of exchanging contracts; infrequent use will not mollify the kind of kitchen inspector who demands from aspiring national leaders (to quote the wife of the Tory chief whip, Sarah Vine), “a half-decent set of curtains” and “jolly painted crockery”. No matter that the writer who called the Miliband kitchen “mean and sterile”, is the same person who voluntarily ornamented the Gove HQ – in excess of allowable parliamentary expenses – with bronze “elephant lamps” from the colonial-style selection manufactured by the prime minister’s mother-in-law. It is beyond question that, were this election to be, miraculously, decided entirely by Foxton estate agents, the Camerons would ace it on their walnut flooring alone.
Yet even if, like me, you actively rejoiced to see in Miliband’s fist a mug identical to your own, surviving, blue-and-white-striped crockery, there must be creeping doubts about kitchen-based party appeals, and not only because they use up precious time when the protagonists would obviously, otherwise, be specifying precisely where their planned cuts will fall.
It’s hard enough, already, for ambitious politicians without a full complement of spouse and tots. Do they also need, if they are not to be likened to aliens from Minsk, to demonstrate mastery of slow-cooked stews and the Kirstie Allsopp kitchen aesthetic? Do voters, in reality, give a toss that Ed Balls can make lasagne? Or warm towards Gove, hammer of the teaching profession, now that we know (courtesy of Mrs Gove) that their cosy kitchen is further blessed with mice and companion animals “stalking the worktop for tidbits”. Actually, perhaps we do if we are the benefactors at the recent Black and White ball who bid for a “hearty weeknight roast chicken dinner” prepared at that very worktop.
As reassuring as it is to know that your crockery would be abominated as crypto-communist at the Daily Mail, this promotional exercise belongs to the same dismal school of electoral strategy that first brought us the Cameron breakfast table and, more recently, the mug-clutching Scottish housewife, struggling to get her head around independence. However endearing the naivety of the Milibands, in failing to anticipate the judgment of their bin and worktops, the thinking behind this exercise was fully as condescending as, long ago, Mrs Thatcher’s appearances among tins, trays and tea-towels, as the nation’s first housewife.
The Commons speaker has just apologised for his rudeness toward the Conservative minister, Esther McVey, whose rhetorical style he had likened to a washing machine, a first for that jibe in the Commons, possibly anywhere. Yet this illuminating choice of insult was hardly as offensive, you might think, as an ostensibly progressive party’s conviction that the appropriate setting for a leader’s wife in spouse-validating mode is in – assuming she is not knitting, gardening or on a whole-family park outing – a kitchen.
Labour’s pink bus, of ill-fame, is a masterpiece of gender neutrality compared to this weird, Mad Men-style deployment of wives bearing strictly valueless endorsements, as domestic accessories to male ambition. Although, if the wives were filmed in professional settings, their views would be no less irrelevant, the incongruity might at least lead, for once, to some obvious questions about political legitimacy and objectivity.
Just what was it that suddenly inspired the barrister Justine Thornton, now Mrs Miliband, to break off from her work on behalf of, among others, wind farm developers, to share her vision of “political decency and principle”? And on the Conservative side, how well has the experience of designing luxury handbags for a Luxembourg-based company helped equip Mrs Cameron, sometimes reported to be the prime minister’s decency & principle sounding-board, to understand the needs of Britain’s non-one-per-cent?
Naturally, traditionalists will wish that such collaborations were more common. What, for instance, does Mr Fairhead have to say in defence of Rona’s tenancy at the BBC? Why do we never hear from Mr Sturgeon? How spartan is your CEO’s kitchenette? At the Guardian and Observer we have recently watched hustings featuring candidates hoping to succeed Alan Rusbridger. With Mrs Miliband’s example before us, some members may think it inexplicable that the NUJ failed to demand short, kitchen-based films of doting partners, in the manner of the BBC’s effort, even if this worked to the detriment of single candidates, or of those with companions unwilling, in contrast to Samantha Cameron, to elaborate on the candidate’s messiness around the house.
It is sometimes argued, even after the disaster of Cherie Blair, that our leaders’ wives are damned if they do get involved, but also damned if they don’t. Has this ever been tested? If a further unintended consequence of the Milibands’ joint effort is, ultimately, some understanding of the scale of national loss and resentment, should we be denied the spectacle of wives being loyal in kitchens, then at least the couple’s agonies will not have been in vain.
