We need more female 'bromances' in UK politics like the one between Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton

It's hard to imagine Samantha Cameron standing on the steps of Number 10, with her fist in the air and a quiver in her voice, beseeching the electorate to vote for Theresa May. t’s hard to imagine Samantha Cameron saying anything, really, but perhaps she has a secret Suffragette tattoo somewhere that the media never found out about

US first lady Michelle Obama speaks in support of Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, 25 July, 2016 (Reuters)

There are those who say that Americans are better than the British at meaningful displays of grand emotion. I don’t know about that, but anyone who watched Michelle Obama’s speech to the Democratic national convention yesterday[Monday] might have come away thinking that Americans are the best at everything. Or, as Obama put it, so much more inspiringly: “Don’t let anyone ever tell you this country isn’t great, that somehow we need to make it great again, because this right now is the greatest country on earth!”

Obama’s speech was about courage, faith, family and – more subtly – all the ways in which Donald Trump is a big fat loser, but most of all it was about “our friend Hillary Clinton” and why she is just so damned impressive. Clearly I am far too old to say this, but I want Michelle Obama to be my best friend! What woman wouldn’t go about her working day with a little more vim if she had a cheerleader behind her celebrating her “grace and the guts to keep coming back and put cracks in that highest and hardest glass ceiling until she finally breaks through, lifting all of us with her”? With friends like Obama, we could achieve anything. Well, anything but follow that speech…

There is no female equivalent to the word “bromance”, but the loving admiration of one woman for another is a magnificent thing to behold or experience. If only we saw more of it in British politics. Unfortunately, it’s hard to imagine Samantha Cameron standing on the steps of Number 10, with her fist in the air and a quiver in her voice, beseeching the electorate to vote for Theresa May because “as my [children] prepare to set out into the world, I want a leader who is … worthy of my girls’ promise and all our kids’ promise.” It’s hard to imagine Samantha Cameron saying anything, really, but perhaps she has a secret Suffragette tattoo somewhere that the media never found out about.

Britain, unlike America, is not big on rousing and emotional speeches and prefers instead for powerful women to bash each other around the heads in the national press. Margaret Thatcher famously promoted only one woman to the Cabinet in 11 years, and revelled in the idea that “The feminists hate me, don’t they? And I don’t blame them.” Few women in today’s politics are so blatant, but their lack of sorority shows.

In the recent Conservative leadership election, Rachel Johnson (sister of the deposed leadership hopeful Boris) wrote a long article excoriating Michael Gove and his wife Sarah Vine. “Yet, having said all that, and knowing them a bit, it’s hard to imagine they mean any harm," she concluded. “I like them … After all, they did what they felt they had to do … What distresses me about all this is not the Lady Macbething, the betrayal, any pain they might have visited on people I love…” In turn, the most admiring thing that Sarah Vine could say about Theresa May was: “All hail the High Priestess of Grump, second only to the Queen herself in her ability to evoke thunder with a mere twitch of her nostrils” and “Theresa May, whose tractor beam glare makes Anna Wintour’s seem positively Bambi-esque”. Andrea Leadsom infamously chipped in: “I don't want this to be ‘Andrea has children, Theresa hasn’t’, because I think that would be really horrible, but…”

I don’t see May giving it up for her girl Amber Rudd any time soon, but let’s hope that she makes the level of debate in parliament a little more “woop woop” and a bit less “boo yah”. After all, as Obama said: “When crisis hits, we don’t turn against each other, we listen to each other, we lean on each other, because we know that we are always stronger together.” And as she also said: “I’m with her.”