Hell hath no fury like a public-spirited ex-wife

I think we’re all very relieved that Vicky Pryce, the estranged wife of the Cabinet minister Chris Huhne, is not motivated by revenge in writing a book about her ex-husband and dobbing him in to the police.

I think we’re all very relieved that Vicky Pryce, the estranged wife of the Cabinet minister Chris Huhne, is not motivated by revenge in writing a book about her ex-husband and dobbing him in to the police. If the book was motivated by spite and revenge because Chris had recently dumped her for a strange mannish woman who ever-so-slightly resembles the late TV comedian Jack Douglas, I think we’d all feel a little unclean reading it. But Vicky insists that it was written in order to let people know how terribly difficult it can be if you’re married to a senior politician — so, in a sense, she has written the book out of open-hearted kindness and a sense of decency.

Similarly, one supposes, her willingness to testify to the police that Chris allegedly persuaded her to cop for his speeding ticket eight years ago is also motivated by a sense of decency and nobility, albeit a sense of decency and nobility which has been somewhat sluggish in manifesting itself. You would hope that the old bill will have a chance to read Vicky’s book, acquaint themselves with her sense of decency and nobility and therefore not charge her for having accepted the speeding penalty in the first case, i.e. before the decency and nobility wandered along. If indeed she did accept the points penalty, as she is now fervently claiming to anyone who will listen. In terms of seriousness the two offences are not terribly different, even if for one party they will mean a destroyed political career and for the other a sort of bitter, pyrrhic victory.