Rachel Reeves, Winston Churchill and a short history of crying in politics
In fact, the tearful politician has been with us for some time. Andrew Roberts notes that Winston Churchill's 'astonishing lachrymosity could be unleashed at minor moments as well as on great occasions, especially if martial music was involved'. Examples included tearing up on a visit to an East End air raid shelter during the Blitz, while singing 'O God Our Help In Ages Past' with FDR aboard the USS Augusta, and after watching historical drama That Hamilton Woman (Alexander Korda, 1941).
For Brits over a certain age, a defining political memory will be Margaret Thatcher's tear-stained exit from Number 10. Her voice trembled as she announced: 'Ladies and gentlemen, we're leaving Downing Street for the last time,' but the brave face gave way once she was bundled into the back of the car that would carry her away from power. A camera flash penetrated the tinted windows and revealed the haunted eyes and clasped lip of a commander betrayed by her own infantrymen.
Twenty-nine years later, Theresa May trod the same cobbled steps to fall on her own sword, though much like her predecessor the mortal wounds had been delivered by the daggers of her own colleagues. May held up longer than Thatcher but began to waver when she spoke of 'the job that it has been the honour of my life to hold' and there was a pronounced crack in her timbre at mention of being 'the second female prime minister'. But it was in the final words of her statement, when she expressed her 'enormous and enduring gratitude', that her composure crumbled, so that she closed several octaves higher, on 'serve the country that I love', and you could feel her heart ache with each syllable.
While Thatcher's tears elicited schadenfreude from her enemies on the left, May's sniffles evoked a little more sympathy due to the sheer impossibility of the feat she had taken on: getting Brexit through an anti-Brexit parliament and a soft Brexit through a hard Brexit party. There was markedly less sympathy for Matt Hancock during his lachrymose tenure as health secretary, epitomised by his choking up while discussing the Covid vaccine rollout on Good Morning Britain. Hancock's Kleenex moments became so prolific that they were mocked by Spitting Image and even had Good Morning Britain questioning how sincere the waterworks were.
Public lamentations by the political classes aren't just a British phenomenon. Even less sympathetic than Hancock is Japanese lawmaker Ryutaro Nonomura, who went viral in 2014 for bawling hysterically in a press conference called to rebut allegations that he had fraudulently claimed expenses. He was later convicted of misusing public funds, and is now a relationship guru and host of 'Ryutaro Nonomura's Love Story Channel'. (I'm not making this up.)
Hillary Clinton choked up during a televised reading of the presidential victory speech she never got to give in 2016, an act of such solipsism you can appreciate why the American people opted for the reality TV sociopath instead. Former Republican House Speaker John Boehner bleated so often — when he was sworn in, when he met the Pope, when he had a conversation with the prime minister of Estonia — that blubbing is his principal legacy. Edmund Muskie, a serious contender for the Democrat presidential nomination in 1972, was thought to have sunk his chances when a speech in New Hampshire defending his wife from criticism of her lifestyle opened the floodgates. Other leaders manage to snot up but retain their dignity in the long run. Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin famously sobbed during a radio broadcast on the Altalena affair while Australians recall Bob Hawke being overcome during a speech describing the horrors of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Politics is an unforgiving business. One of Hawke's successors, Julia Gillard, remembers a phone call from another former PM, the eternally blunt Paul Keating, the day after she was deposed in a party room coup. 'We all get taken out in a box, love,' came the voice on the other end of the line. It was intended as a consolation. Yet the brute realities and sudden betrayals that await all who walk the corridors of power are of little interest to the voters. They don't have warm and fuzzy feelings for Chancellors at the best of times, and certainly not in times of economic hardship. Our upper lips might not be so stiff anymore but they curl in cruelty when a politician blubbers.
Whatever the source of Rachel Reeves' sorrows, the political and media classes will be far more sympathetic than the voters. Whether her anguish is personal or political, most hearts across the country have already hardened against her. Many MPs and journalists will find that hard to believe — what if some terrible family loss is involved? — but as in so many things proximity to Westminster is distance from the voters, and the voters are not merely angry but contemptuous towards this government.
A little more graciousness would benefit us all, a recognition of life's difficulties and complexities, even just a fleeting pang of empathy for our common human frailty, but don't count on it in this case. If the Chancellor had any idea just how thoroughly the public loathes her and her colleagues, she really would weep.
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Campaign group HOPE not Hate says that in the past year the Reform leader has spoken just 45 times in Parliament, fewer than any other leader with a seat in Westminster – Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has spoken 226 times. Farage failed to show up to key votes on renters' rights, the winter fuel allowance and even a debate on the government's post-Brexit negotiations. Walking along the beach at Jaywick, burned out buildings are still visible along with melted guttering, but residents tell me it took their MP a week to visit the scene of a devastating blaze there. In contrast, the local community pulled together to set up refuges after the fire in Beach Way on August 8 left three homes destroyed and seven others damaged, with eight fire crews working for hours to tackle the flames. Julie Coleman is at her sewing machine at Julie's Alterations – where net curtains are shortened for £12 – wearing a tiara that sparkles in the heatwave. "We all had a lot of hope for Nigel," the 68-year-old says. "To be honest, I haven't seen a lot of change since the election. I know he's been in America." Nikki Barthelmy, 35, says she'd like to talk to her MP about fly-tipping. "And lifesaving rings because there are no lifeguards on the beach here." Rachel Richards, 38, runs schoolwear shop Uniform 7. "He's not engaged with me as a local business," she says of her MP. "I've never seen him." As the mother of a child with additional needs, she's unimpressed the Reform leader has claimed GPs are over-diagnosing mental health problems and special educational needs. Elaine Lacey, 64, is fundraising for a charity bike ride in memory of her son Greg, a father-of-two who battled mental health issues, alcohol addiction and homelessness. He was waiting for rehab when he died aged 38. Elaine says addiction issues in the community need the local MP's support. "I am so fed up with politicians," she says. "I was excited for Nigel but then I saw he's got all these second jobs. I'll keep fighting. If I can help one person not go to the depths my son went to, it will be worth it." The man-of-the-people Reform leader is so far the highest-earning MP this year, The parliamentary register of interests shows he has spent more than 800 hours on outside employment since being elected. In April, 'Nine jobs Nigel' got a 10th job, earning him £25,000 as a commentator for Rupert Murdoch's Sky News Australia. Other roles include a £280,000 job advertising gold bullion. In total, he is approaching £900,000 in outside earnings. In contrast, all across his constituency, we find people working tirelessly to Make Clacton Great Again. Dr Karen Dennis came home to Clacton to make a difference. Despite battling a series of close bereavements, she has converted an old tyre centre into a shop, Ketchup Clothes, where she sells clothes made from old tents left on the beach, and runs community events and workshops. "When Farage was elected, I admit I initially wanted to get out," she says. "I felt we were all just pawns in his game. I'm staying because this is a special place." Local labour activist Martin Suker and councillor Peter Kotz show me where the new library will be built with money secured by the Labour government, and a new walkway that will link the town with the seafront. Along the streets, new banners read 'Love Clacton'. "We're doing a lot of exciting things here," Kotz says. "But our MP hasn't been to a single meeting of the Town Board. Apart from looking for a photo opportunity, the honest answer is he's done nothing." A spokesman for Nigel Farage said the MP for Clacton has set up the first Clacton Business Surgery, helped raised over £15,000 for local charity Sandy's Farm, and held advice surgeries for elderly residents who were losing their winter fuel allowance. He also writes a weekly column for the local paper. He added: "Nigel is the manager of a team in a charity football day this weekend in Clacton. Perhaps the Mirror would like to come along to see how popular he is in the local community?" The sense things have gone wrong in places like Jaywick is part of why some people voted for Reform. It's also why the area desperately needs an active champion in Parliament. "There is extreme deprivation in parts of Jaywick," explains Karen Creavin, CEO of the Active Wellbeing Society (AWS), which runs a cycling project and a subsidised bistro where kids eat free, transforming lives in the area. "Parts are like a shanty town. This is not to stigmatise them, it's to say that people are living in conditions that are really unacceptable. There are people living as permanent residents in the caravan park. Many were sent there as temporary accommodation but have little hope of leaving. Sometimes people end up living on the beach, and there are residents experiencing child hunger and period poverty." AWS' orange 'Essex Pedal Power' bikes – free to people below the breadline – can be seen rattling along a new solar-lit cycle path from Jaywick to Clacton taking people to work in an area where the local bus routes don't serve the early shift at ASDA. "There are systemic issues, but also the area has been stigmatised, and that has an effect on aspirations and perceptions," Creavin says. "That's what we are starting to change." With polling predicting Nigel Farage's party could win 377 seats at the next election, there is a lesson in Clacton for voters hearing Reform's siren call. Creavin compares the party's appeal with a world-conquering American brand. "Reform has an over-simplistic, vague, emotional appeal like Coca-Cola," she says. "But in the end, a place like this needs real solutions."
