It was impossible to escape the media saturation coverage of yesterday's election as the results were confirmed this morning, but one moment particularly caught my attention.
A group of presenters were sitting around their TV studio, commenting on the contrast between the glum faced 'winner', Theresa May, and the jubilant, though second placed, Jeremy Corbyn. A female reporter then elicited a little sympathy for May's puffy eyed demeanor by stating that 'She had obviously, probably, been crying', to which there was a respectful murmur, before the group continued their broadcast. All well and good, I thought.
But now I feel compelled to ask:
Did anyone, see, or was there ever even a suggestion, that Mrs May cried when she heard about the innocents killed and maimed in the Manchester bombing?
Did we witness those puffy eyes when she spoke of the London Bridge victims, or before, of those who perished and were brutalized, on the bridge outside and even at the very gates of Westminster?
This is not to be especially critical of May, or any woman in politics, for we saw the same when Mrs Clinton was defeated and when Mrs Thatcher lost her position, but we also saw a gruesome joy in the former's infamous giggle when she boasted of Gaddafi's demise, and a strange indifference to the death of more than 300 young sailors, by the later.
So what is it, do women in politics really need to be tougher than men, to the point where they cannot pretend any longer; or are tears even such a bad thing?
Perhaps if Mrs May had wept at the horrors of 7/7, she might have determined, that when she became Home Secretary she would actually do something to halt any further such atrocities and prevent other mothers, daughters and sisters from shedding their, altogether more innocent, tears.
