I’m proud to be a political lioness NOW,

POLITICS can be a brutal old game, as evidenced by Monday’s reshuffle. Egos bruised, careers curtailed, old scores settled. Nevertheless, public displays of emotion are considered very bad form. Commons etiquette dictates that the rejected minister must at all times maintain a brave face, smiling as he or she picks their way to the exit through the rubble of their career.

For their wives, partners or significant others, meanwhile, it’s all about being quietly supportive: a sympathetic ear, a cold gin and tonic, a nice home-cooked supper. Most of all, maintaining a dignified silence. Or is it? On the day her husband, Robert Syms, lost his job as a Conservative whip, his wife Fiona-Natasha Syms took to Twitter in high dudgeon, describing herself as ‘beyond furious’.

She went on to suggest that he would soon be siding with backbench rebels, and joked that their children were planning to defect to Labour. It was only after a quiet word from the poor man himself ( f r om whom she i s, in f act, estranged) that she backed off, tweeting that she had been told to ‘zip it and stop lionessing’.

I have never met Mrs Syms. But I like her style. For I, too, know how it feels to be hopping mad on your husband’s behalf. I, too, have occasionally lost my rag on Twitter. And I, too, have been told more than once to step away from the keyboard.

Me and Mrs Syms, we’re part of a new breed of political wife: the lioness. And we roar.

Cherie Blair was one, as is Sarah Brown. Miriam Clegg is another.

Denis Thatcher was an honorary lioness, a man widely thought to be oblivious to his wife’s travails who was, in fact, always watching her back. There are others, too: not just wives, but l i oness special advisers, civil servants and private secretaries — scary ladies prowling the corridors of power. It’s like the Serengeti out there.

I know I have no mandate to meddle. And I have tried, honestly I have, to be a meek and dutiful Tory wife; to emulate the sainted Norma Major with her Mini Metro and quiet opinions. But I just can’t help myself.

Every time an Opposition politician misrepresents my husband’s motives, every time some lazy hack gets their facts wrong, every time some member of the liberal intelligentsia has a pop, my hackles rise. I just can’t resist challenging them. Online, by post, person to person: I’m always getting caught up in some spat or another.

When, as sometimes happens, someone insults him in public, I pull no punches. After all, he is the elected Member for Surrey Heath and Education Secretary. I’m not. He’s not allowed to tell people what he really thinks of them. I am.

I wasn’t always such a grumpy old moggie. When he first entered politics, I was brimming with the milk of human kindness. I might even have been a little starry-eyed and idealistic, more of a cub than a battle-scarred lioness.

It took a couple of years of having the stuffing knocked out of him — and, by extension, me and the children — f or me to f ull y comprehend the true viciousness of British politics.

Disbelief, shock, sadness, then weary resignation. And now the final stage: white-hot fury. It’s a process, and most political partners go through it.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not complaining. It’s a great honour and a source of immense pride to have a husband in the Cabinet.

But I am not a robot. I cannot feign indifference. And while my husband has many faults, at least he has the courage to put his neck on the line for what he believes in.

The least I can do, as his wife, is stand up for him.