Philip May did well, but he’s got the job from hell

THERE is one job that no one applies for and which is impossible to get right. A job that carries many risks and surprisingly few rewards.

It offers no certainty save for the knowledge that, at some point, you will be pilloried, and photographed from an unflattering angle. It’s the role of the political spouse. When I heard that the Prime Minister’s husband, Philip May, had agreed to be interviewed on the One Show, I must admit I felt for the poor fellow.

Not because I thought he wouldn’t be able to handle Alex Jones (a bit like being interviewed by a Furby), but because I know how much will have been riding on last night’s appearance.

As it happens, the gig went quite well for the Mays, who showed themselves to be relaxed in each other’s company and not devoid of humour. Or that’s how I saw it.

Others were not so sure, Twitter hackles rose at the notion Mr May enjoys doing ‘traditional boy’s jobs’ like taking out the rubbish (all jobs are gender neutral now, didn’t he get the equality memo?) and his memory of his future wife being ‘a lovely girl’ when they met at Oxford University.

STILL, he confirmed my own experience, that very few political spouses set out to get the job. Yet he barely put a foot wrong. It was a masterclass in how a political spouse should behave — an art, I fear, I have yet to master.

I’ve found the whole business is far from straightforward. And, if I’m honest, there are times when it can be positively hellish.

I only became a political spouse because years ago I met a very nice, clean young man who, apart from owning a surprisingly large number of books about Margaret Thatcher, seemed in every other respect to be perfectly normal.

I completely failed to realise his interest in politics would quickly mutate into a serious obsession and to an actual seat in Parliament. It never occurred to me that I would one day end up married to a minister — because it never occurred to me that anyone would actually want to be a politician.

But that is because, unlike him, I am not in the grip of a compulsion every bit as addictive ( and destructive) as the most powerful narcotic known to man: the politics bug.

It’s a terrible thing to confess, but before I met and married Michael Gove, I was the sort of person who might easily not have bothered voting. Politics seemed to me like a lot of angry men shouting at each other, mostly about things that other shouty, angry men had or hadn’t done. Best just to let them get on with it.

To my eternal shame, I once voted for the Greens, although it was only a local council election, and she was a very nice lady.

It gets worse. When Margaret Thatcher stood down as Prime Minister, I rushed to Oddbins in Islington and bought the last bottle of champagne on the shelf to celebrate. There was a run on the stuff that night, as I remember.

I wasn’t actually a Tory. I even voted for Tony Blair (although with hindsight that didn’t exactly make me a labour voter, either).

I have other failings as a political spouse, too. A pathological inability to remember people’s names. A total lack of interest in planning issues. A strong dislike of dauphinoise potatoes, which, on the Tory fundraising dinner circuit is, believe me, a bit of a problem.

Oh, and unlike Philip May, an unfailing talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at precisely the wrong time.

So really, when it comes to Tory spouses there couldn’t be anyone less qualified for the job than me.

except for one thing: I love my husband very much and want him to succeed at the thing that makes him happy. Which, God help us both, is politics.