Rishi’s Strong Feminist Message

I notice that we’ve started to call politicians by their first name only. People were worried about calling the Prime Minister Boris because it made him sound too loveable. Your favourite  old saggy teddy or the family golden retriever, who sits in the corner being blamed for all the smells is called Boris. They’re pretty useless but you love them nonetheless. Now it’s the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Rishi, with the trim two tone suits, shiny shoes, who brings his own lunch to work in a Tupperware box and has an expensive coffee holder. Rishi, who found the magic money tree and sends out his strong feminist message with a completely straight face.

I listened to his speech yesterday on the radio. I was in the kitchen making biscuits. I was impressed.
“That’s clever!” I said to the cookie dough, as he announced the bonus for not sacking furloughed workers until January. It might work. If the virus is not a problem and we have gone back to the old normal then it could save the economy. Obviously, it’s risky because if there is a second winter wave then we’re all scuppered but you have to be impressed with a conservative government putting in place such a socialist package of measures.

Then he announced his plan to get the restaurant economy going again. Personally, I think it’s only confidence people need to go and eat in restaurants again, which is a hard message to get across when it’s not safe to sing or hug your friends but you can’t blame them for trying.

I confess, I have a filthy mind. I am Queen of Innuendo Bingo. When the Eurovision strap line a few years ago was ‘Come Together’ I chuckled all the way through. When Graham Norton said, “Welcome to Eurovision where we are all going to come together,” I snorted my drink out through my nose before he said, “Hmmm. I’d have liked to have been in the meeting where they signed that off.” Bake Off is one of the best programmes to watch for innuendo bingo but I wasn’t expecting to play it while listening to the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s speech from the House of Commons.
“I’m announcing eat out to help out,” he said
“Oh no. You haven’t....oh my....you have.....you did....oh gosh....” I shouted at the radio.
I like to think that a disgruntled civil servant suggested it as a joke, maybe the same one that tweeted after Dominic Cummings infamous eye-test. Still, it’s a strong feminist message.

I remember when I first came across this feminist message. I was reading The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr. This book is set in 1960s England, where Mummy and Sophie are stuck at home learning how to do ‘female things’. The tiger comes to tea and eats all the food in the house and so there is no dinner on the table when Daddy gets home from his important job in the office. We were expected to feel the peril. There was a culture at the time where a man could reasonably beat his wife for being so neglectful in her duties. However, Daddy was a nice man and decided to eat out to help out and they went to a cafe for sausages.