I didn’t have powerful 1997 vibes last week, and not because I was too busy grumbling; I also hit the ground complaining about Tony Blair. But one thing did remind me of that era. A set of urgent questions were raised, which we could group loosely as, “Who the hell is that woman, and what does she think she’s wearing?
Back in the day, all eyes were on “Blair’s Babes”, a deeply considered epithet for an influx of Labour women, many of whom were actually older than the prime minister, but that didn’t matter. All it took was a babe or two, for “Babe” to be used to describe the collective. It wouldn’t happen today, so I guess we could call that progress.
Things have remained unchanged, however, for the new prime minister’s wife, variously referred to as “the power behind the throne”, the “secret weapon” and the “chatelaine”. All of these propositions are fundamentally untestable: the first could mean anything. It could mean that Victoria Starmer has very strong but unpublished views on prison reform, which she’s pummelling the cabinet with behind the scenes as we speak, or it could mean that she always makes overnight oats and these keep Keir’s brain fresh as he plans his address to Nato. In what sense is she a secret, when she’s standing right there, and in what scenario might her shadowy yet highly visible presence be weaponised? Don’t worry about the details, just worry in the abstract. “Chatelaine” or, literally, “lady in charge of a large house”, describes a potentially infinite scope of power; the house being Downing Street, she could be at the helm of government, or she could be figuring out which key opens which window.
The fundamental objection, which tends to remain unstated until the prime minister’s partner is accused of intervening on behalf of badgers, say, is that the role is influential but not elected. Weird, then, that when you come into office and you were elected, that is also a huge problem, but only if you’re a woman who wears clothes. Angela Rayner, we learn, favours the brand Me+Em, the deputy prime minister wearing “an outfit from a brand with close links to the Labour party for the third consecutive day”, yesterday, according to the Telegraph. It’s clearly a misdemeanour of some sort, but it’s unclear what the accusation is: cronyism? Are we into the dark timeline, where the only designers who get a fair showing on the world stage are married to the marketing manager of Blair’s 2001 election campaign? Whither Marks & Spencer, if those are the new rules? Are the outfits too expensive for a socialist? Or did Rayner just wear a suit that was too loud for a built-up area? Victoria also favours Me+Em, which could hint at an emerging power base, where elected and unelected members of the coven are calling each other every night for colour-blocking purposes.
Rachel Reeves has dodged the sartorial insinuation, since her status as the nation’s first female chancellor has sharpened the focus on more pressing matters: her nearest ministerial toilet only has a urinal. I’m thinking maybe that’s something the chatelaine could sort out, while Reeves gets on with rebuilding the economy. Reeves has been very upfront about the danger she poses, as a woman in such a key role – she might try to close the pay gap, for instance, and deal with the challenges of low pay and insecure work that disproportionately affect women – but allies and commentators are also keen to stress that she plays chess and used to work for the Bank of England. Relax, everyone; she’s man-adjacent.
With a record number of women – 11 – in senior cabinet roles, there must surely come a time when the world will simply get used to them, along with the fact that they’ll often have agendas and will always be wearing clothes. We’ll take our new-government honeymoon where we always do, though, back in the 1950s.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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• This article was amended on 9 July 2024 to correct a wither/whither homophone.
