Why the wives of the wealthy have my sympathy

12 April 2012

Austerity Mum has brought light into all our crepuscular little lives with her relevations of the important changes she is making to her family's lifestyle and budget: she's cutting out helicopter transfers from Nice to the villa in Ramatuelle. She's going to Morocco instead of the Maldives at half-term. Yes, Austerity Mum agrees with George Osborne: we're all in it together so she's making sacrifices, too.

We know this because she's been penning a Gatsby-esque blog all about her make-do-and-mend trips to bespoke cobblers to have her husband's Berluti brogues (cost: between £400-£700 a pair) resoled, the false economy of flying carriage, und so weiter.

Her blog, as you might expect, has built an appreciative audience of followers, eager for ever more eye-stretching peephole revelations of how the rich live. And now it's over. Austerity Mum has been outed, and has taken down her blog.

One can sort of see why: Lisa Unwin's husband, a high-roller at a City accountancy firm, has been known to the world up to now only as the "Chief Spending Officer". Her daughter is "diva-in-waiting" and her son "the smallest man with the biggest attitude". You get the picture: tricky over the breakfast table, not to mention the boardroom.

After all, millions of people all over the world, particularly poor people, have lost their jobs and their homes following the orgiastic excesses of the bankers and the criminal failures of the regulators and auditors and credit agencies to rein them in (I refer any doubters to the forthcoming must-see documentary about the financial crisis called Inside Job).

So, Austerity Mum twittering about how Prada isn't good enough for hubby - who I have no doubt is a blameless, hard-working chap - is doubtless a bit difficult PR-wise at this stage in the cycle.

But still. I'm sad about Austerity Mum's demise. First, we must not underestimate the entertainment value of the embarrassing wife, from Christine Hamilton to Sally Bercow. Inadvertently or otherwise, they always add to the gaiety of nations.

Second, she's being ironic. The fact that she calls herself "Austerity Mum" while openly living in a "squillion"-pound east London mansion and saying how it would be "totally cruel" to sack the gardener is a tiny clue here? As she says: "It was never meant to be taken literally. It was intended to be tongue-in-cheek."

Third, like it or loathe it, we need the Unwins to carry on spending like there's no tomorrow, even while pretending not to. My favourite joke about the cheese-paring habits of the rich is the one where husband says to the wife, "If you could cook, we could sack the chef," and she replies, "And if you could f***, we could sack the chauffeur."

Even in a recession, we all need the rich to spread it around. It remains the business of the wealthy man to give employment to the artisan. And even though it is no more, the moral of the mayfly life of the Austerity Mum blog (and Mrs U - do get in touch if you want to pursue a writing career at the go-to place for domestic staff, The Lady) is that even in the worst of times, the rich are different from you and me.

They still have more money, and they always will.

Rachel Johnson is editor of The Lady.

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