LONDON — Hullo there. I’m Phil, the Woody Allen lookalike, aka Theresa’s other half.
It’s a funny old life at the moment.
“Him indoors,” the police officers in Downing Street call me. I sometimes stop for a chat when I pop out on a morning to go shopping — the usual essentials such as milk, eggs, heavy-duty sleeping tablets, boxes of Kleenex for when we’ve all been having a good cry, and Polyfilla to repair the plasterwork where T has beaten her head against the wall.
On Monday I complimented the Bobbies on their machine guns, which they were brandishing with their customary professionalism. “We might need those later,” I said, ever the japester. “We’ve got Boris Johnson coming in for drinks along with lots of Brexiteer MPs. Theresa might be tempted to borrow a few bullets.”
In the event, Boris behaved himself. We asked the prettiest waitress in the room to keep plying him with sausage rolls and some slightly fizzy prawn vol-au-vents to stop him talking too much.
British Prime Minister Theresa May, walks with her husband Philip whilst on vacation in Italy, July 29, 2018 | Pool photo by Marco Tacca via Getty Images
On the advice of the spin doctors we also invited MPs to bring their spouses. That ensured the conversation remained on the level of domestic small talk. I’m good at that. Last summer, Melania Trump and I had a grand old chin-wag about how much time our spouses spend doing their barnets every morning. Just as George W. Bush and Tony Blair once discovered they used the same toothpaste, Melania and I discovered our better halves use the same hairspray.
But I’d be lying if I said it was all fun and games.
Nights are difficult. T keeps talking (well, shouting, really) in her sleep, thrashing the sheets and saying “Donald, you’re not going to get your hands on my booty.” When I shake her awake she insists she was talking about Mr. Tusk and the British £39 billion withdrawal payment, not Trump or “booty” in the American slang sense. I believe her.
Early December was a bit choppy and T did become a bit morose. One morning I had to unpeel her fingers one by one from the No. 10 bannister to get her to go to work. She wasn’t her usual cheery, thigh-slapping self. One day I humorously recalled that when she became PM she spoke of the “just about managings” and that, sure enough, we were “just about managing” to run the country, but she didn’t think my joke terribly funny.
British Prime Minister Theresa May’s husband Philip May goes into the back of 10 Downing Street on July 9, 2018 in London, England | Chris J. Ratcliffe/Getty Images
But after she survived that confidence vote among Conservative MPs we each had a celebration schooner of sweet sherry — just the one, mind you. We used the glasses we got from a Daily Telegraph reader offer in the early days of our marriage, and save for special occasions. From then until the start of this week she was the life and soul of the party (with a small p!). We had a lovely Christmas. I gave her a novelty kitchen apron with the motto “not even onions make me cry.”
Alas, parliament returned on Monday and since then the apron has been put away in a drawer. Stress levels have been jumping off the Richter scale.
At dawn it can be tricky to get T to come out from under the bed blankets. There is usually a brief discussion along the lines of “we won’t still be the occupants of 10 Downing Street at the end of the week, so what’s the point?”
I try to cheer her up by doing my Angela Merkel impersonation — I place my underpants over my head, speak in a toneless voice and fling my verbs to the back of every sentence. If things go wrong in politics, I might have a tilt at “Britain’s Got Talent.” Simon Cowell’s said to be a Tory, after all.
At breakfast we try to keep the newspapers out of sight because they only upset T. Chief of staff Gavin had a brainwave (now there’s something I don’t often say!) and tuned all the Downing Street radios to Classic FM, so that we only listen to soothing symphonies while we’re munching on our toast and marmalade. Just so long as they steer clear of Beethoven’s 9th.
Off T toddles to her study after breakfast. Do I worry? Of course I do. I try to keep her going by sending her text messages such as, “Tell Philip Hammond his hair is a mess” or “Gove’s flies are undone.” But it’s horrible to see the woman you love being biffed and battered by the Brexit hassles.
British Prime Minister Theresa May (L) and husband Philip May (R) attend the Chelsea Flower Show 2018 on May 21, 2018 in London, England | Jeff Spicer/Getty Images
Every evening, after hours of cacophony and criticism, T toddles home, collapses into the sofa, stabs her letter knife into the cushions for 10 minutes, and then says she’s feeling “much better” and is ready for her high tea. Boiled eggs are our current favorite. As we smash their shells we take great satisfaction in imagining we’re whacking Jacob Rees-Mogg on the bonce.
Next week’s vote? It’ll be agony, of course. But we cross every crisis — and sometimes drop into the ravine — as we come to it.
Before that we have our usual trip to church on Sunday. No shortage of prayers to say.
Quentin Letts is parliamentary sketchwriter for the Daily Mail and author of “Patronising Bastards” (Little, Brown 2017).