Jayne Dowle: Condescending and patronising... how David Cameron revealed his true self

You could almost feel sorry for David Cameron when he opened his mouth in the House of Commons and told the previously little known Labour MP Angela Eagle to “calm down dear, calm down”.

I don’t know whether it was the “calm down”, the “dear”, or the vision of Michael Winner suddenly appearing before them in the middle of PMQs, but as soon as he said it, you could feel collective female hackles rising across the Commons.

Labour, Tory and Lib Dem women united for once, and if they didn’t say it, the voice inside their head squealed “sexist” in the manner of Jane Horrocks in Mike Leigh’s Life is Sweet.

Condescending. Patronising. Old-bufferish. It is such as shame he had to go and show himself up like this. For all the hype and the harrumphing in reactionary Tory circles, I do believe that Cameron genuinely wanted to give women more opportunities to stand as MPs at the last election.

We could argue forever about whether this selective process did women any good or if actively encouraging them to stand actually does them no favours whatsoever. We could also argue over whether some of the female Tory MPs who took their seats for the first time have been worth all the fuss and bother, but that’s another matter. The point remains, Cameron did recognise that things had to change.

And yet, you do wonder just how deeply he feels this in his heart and in his instincts? It’s galling for Cameron that his little moment with Ms Eagle came in the same week as all the hoo-ha over whether he was going to wear tails to the Royal Wedding.

My first reaction to that was “oh, grow up”. Everyone knows you are posh, so why waste energy pretending otherwise? And in any case, has he never seen Big Fat Gypsy Weddings?

The first-thing any self-respecting chav does is get down to Moss Bros for the full works. Top hat and tails, rather than being the mark of privilege, is now the ultimate leveller. And the very fact that our Prime Minister doesn’t realise this shows a worrying lack of knowledge about life in Britain in 2011. Almost as worrying as his apparently intimate knowledge of “popular television advertisements”. When does he have time to watch Midsomer Murders?

That tails business reminded me of the Eton boys I was at Oxford with, grubbing around in charity shops for over-coats and having their hair cut like Morrissey, then going off to shooting parties for the weekend.

It didn’t convince then, and it doesn’t convince now. And really, in the week before a massive referendum which could change the way our whole political system works, was apparently agonising over the messages his tailoring could send out a sensible political move?

I keep thinking of the word insiders are using in connection with another Old Etonian in the news. “Straightforward” is the one they keep returning to when describing how Prince William, sorry, the Duke of Cambridge, deals with people.

I suggest that Mr Cameron, the next time he finds himself under pressure at PMQs, asks himself, not what would Michael Winner say in these circumstances, but how would the heir to the heir to the throne handle it? I think he will find that HRH would never find himself inadvertently referencing a television advertisement for car insurance.

Musing on this comparison though, it does make me wonder what the new Duke does call his beloved. I bet he doesn’t call her “dear”. And as for Catherine, I bet if anyone ever refers to him as her “hubby”, then her composure will slip and she will resolve to strike the offender off the christening list. But, as David Cameron proves, some men just can’t help it, so she had better get ready.

I’m no politically-correct termagant, perish the thought, but it’s a thin line between term of endearment and piercing, put-you-in-your-place put-down.

In Barnsley, even the men call each other “love” so my argument goes right out the window here. I admit, I quite like being called “duck” by my son’s Sheffielder football coach, because it proves that dialect is alive. And at 43, “babe” is always a bonus. But it’s the “hubby” one that really annoys me.

I have been married for almost 19 years and I can swear that I have never called my husband that pipe-and-slippers sobriquet “hubby”, even in jest. So why do men I barely know think it is acceptable to do so? Especially when I meet them in a business context, have quite (for me) high-falutin’ discussions, and then, over coffee, they sidle up and ask: “So, what does your hubby do?”

When I tell them that he’s not the millionaire boss of a multi-national company indulging my career as it brings in a bit of pin money, they usually back away. Unfortunately for David Cameron, he can’t back away from what his latest gaffe gives away.