The function of the political spouse used to be straightforward. If you were Denis Thatcher it was to travel in the wake of the SS Margaret and collect the body parts. For most others, the public role was traditionally to support the appearance of normality and, if necessary, heterosexuality. This summer a new model has emerged: the wife as published author and representative in a proxy popularity contest. So the news that Ffion Hague, author of The Pain and The Privilege: The Women in Lloyd George's Life, has beaten Cherie Blair, who wrote Speaking for Myself, in a survey of MPs' summer reading has been excitedly reported as the ultimate triumph for the tortoise once so utterly trounced by the Blairite hare. Hague's book is even ranked 625th to Blair's 2,023rd on Amazon. It's a good read, and undoubtedly took longer to...
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