A Big Girl’s Blouse

A Big Girl’s Blouse

          I am thoroughly enjoying the shenanigans in the House of Commons.  I can barely recall a U.S. news day with as much Parliamentary proceedings making the news as today.  Then again, three lost votes (the first three votes) for a new Prime Minister sets Boris Johnson in the record books as the most controversial PM in the history of England.  No one has ever lost a first, much less a first three, votes like that.  I love seeing the grandson of Sir Winston Churchill talk about the need to reclaim “the parliamentary history of compromise, humility and understanding”.  To whatever extent we found the Tweetmeister-in-Chief to be trashing our most honored political norms, it pales by comparison to the undoing of the longstanding traditions of the British Parliament.

          Back in 1997, the Bankers Trust Company partnership gathered under the leadership of Chairman Frank Newman for its annual meeting.  It was decided to do the meeting in London and as a senior member of the partnership, I was tasked with organizing the meeting “theatrics”.  Specifically, it was decided by Frank that we would run the meeting like it was a House of Commons session.  I was set up by a well-connected UK partner with the Master-at-Arms of the House of Commons to get a tour of the Houses of Parliament and figure out the procedural rigors to properly set the stage for a realistic session.  The most memorable tidbit of that tour of the Houses of Parliament was the factoid that there are over 700 places within that building where a member can be served an alcoholic beverage.  I challenged that overwhelming fact and the Master-at-Arms produced a listing.  I did not try to audit it, but it was convincing enough to make me realize that the British distinction of being the hardest drinkers on the planet was well-earned and deeply entrenched in this British central governance institution that seemed such a somber and serious affair.

This tour was intended to imbue in me all the pomp and ceremony as I was to be the Speaker of the House of Commons in our partnership reenactment and thus would wear the robes and wig and run the meeting according to the proper procedural rules of debate.  I fought the humorous instinct to inebriate myself for that added sense of realism as I had learned it to be from the Master-at-Arms. Yesterday’s Boris Johnson defeat session with all its yelling and shouting and calls for “ORDER!” reminded me that the House of Commons has come to look more like a drunken brawl than a serious debate forum about critical economic issues facing this island nation.

          Before leaving our partners meeting of 1997, I remember that after the parliamentary debate of real partnership issues (I felt quite goofy sitting there on my green leather throne in full regalia, though others said it was a fun and interesting session), we went to Madame Tussaud’s House of Wax for a private reception.  As we wandered through the displays, the caterer had positioned multiple drinks stations and I estimated that Brits cannot go more than fifteen feet without access to alcohol.  I remember thinking that Henry VIII was much smaller than I had imagined, and that Queen Victoria’s girth (and hence her blouse) was much larger.  For some reason, the Boris Johnson insults thrown at his rebelling and side-changing Tory compatriots brought that Wax Museum visit to mind.  I did wonder how much the brawling MP’s had had to drink, but mostly I wondered about the etymology of their colorful insults.  Boris called one member a “chlorinated chicken”.  When chicken is processed for consumption, it is often washed with chlorinated water.  While that does not leave poisonous chlorine on the chicken, it does, I suppose, make it as bland and devoid of bacterial life as it can possibly be.  In theory this is a good thing by FDA standards, but to Boris it seems to mean that it is “lily-livered”, weak and gut-less.

          Then Boris called another member “a big girl’s blouse”.  I start by assuming that the word “big” is intended to describe the insultee rather than the girl’s blouse.  I think he meant that whatever badness relates to being a girl’s blouse, the bigger of that you are, the worse you are for it. But a girl’s blouse is an interesting bit of imagery.  Being heterosexually and objectifyingly inclined, I tend to think quite positively of girl’s blouses.  There is so much to like.  They can be coquettishly revealing and yet ever so discrete in covering that grand attraction to all the little boy in us that wants to be near mommy’s breast.  They can be loose fitting and billowy or tight and straining at the popping buttons.  They can be crisp and laundered in a school-girlish manner or rumpled and naughty with collar all askew.  As you can see, my girl’s blouse imagination is quite rich.

          Obviously, Boris did not intend to give Jeremy Corbyn any positive connotations with the idiom.  He clearly meant it to mean what Wikipedia defines as its meaning, “ineffectual or weak, someone failing to show masculine strength or determination”.   There is a raft of people who already knew that Boris was a misogynist and a homophobe, and nothing about his use of this schoolyard fob was either surprising or noteworthy except that the nature of the parliamentary drama got it broadcast all over the world. Hence, those of us who weren’t “buggered silly” in British public school in our youth are left to ponder the use of the whole big girl’s blouse comment.

          Meanwhile, back at the White House in this comedy of political idiocy and churlishness, Donald Trump was busy coloring in National Weather Service charts with a Sharpie, like a kindergartener run amok.  Five days and nine tweets defending why he was right to include Alabama in the hurricane Dorian warning has led to a national disgrace the likes of which make Boris Johnson look like an adult leader compared to our president.  The world has sunk to sitcom depths with memes spreading virally with every form of Sharpie humor that can be imagined while Boris tries to comb his wild hair and think of his next creative parliamentary insult.  Petulant, foot-stomping toddlers are now officially in charge of the western world while the Putin, Xi and Kim Jong Un’s of the world look on afraid to smile for fear that they might let on that this is the best news they have had in their plan to displace and dismantle the democratic age.  When the dust settles, both Donald and Boris will be seeking solace at mommy’s blouse for all the big bad men who will be in charge of the world, taking away all of their toys and Sharpies.