While browsing on the Stuff website I came across an article by Andrea Vance. It had an intriguing headline- She’s not a doll, so don’t call the Prime Minister Cindy. Andrea commenced her article with a comparison with Margaret Thatcher which initially took me somewhat by surprise. I felt this was perhaps being a little unkind to Baroness Thatcher. I then realised the comparison was only in terms of the subject matter of the article.
Andrea pointed out that no-one dared abbreviate Margaret Thatcher’s Christian name to her face. Her staff called their formidable boss (no comparison there) Mrs Thatcher or sometimes Mrs T when she was not present. True friends or those pretending intimacy, called her Margaret. Andrea says it was the Labour Party who demonised her as Maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher”, when she ended the provision of free milk for school children in the 1970’s. The tabloid press adopted the condescending diminutive Maggie and it stuck until she died in 2013. She hated it.
Andrea says, like Margaret Thatcher, Jacinda Ardern’s critics use an over familiar cutesy name. Evidently it is used on Twitter, comment boards and other social media and by Judith Collin’s husband. Andrea says its use is condescending and paternalistic. Ardern’s family and friends don’t call her Cindy and she’d rather no-one did. She told the New York Times in 2018, “I just hate the nickname Cindy”.
Andrea points out that John Key was not Johnny and Bill English was not Billy and there was no Robbie Muldoon. Well, there was actually Andrea, a song released by Gray Bartlett and Brendan Dugan entitled The Ballad of Robbie Muldoon. It was released in 1975 and was very popular. I don’t recall Robbie objecting. Rather than coming across as a precious sort, he worked on the principle that any publicity was good publicity.
Here we have a question for debate. Let’s leave the rights and wrongs of the nickname “Cindy” out of it and address the central question about the use of nicknames. Should we have the right to use them? If they are used should it be in endearment terms only rather than to belittle or demean? Should politicians accept that this sort of thing comes with the territory? “Crusher Collins” comes to mind. Has anyone heard Judith Collins bleat about that? That could be used both as a term of either endearment or to demean. As could any other nicknames.
In my view, if you’re in politics it comes with the territory. If you’re not thick-skinned enough to take it then you might be better employed elsewhere. Politics, like sport, is rough and tumble, not playschool. Andrea pleads that the PM is not a doll so we shouldn’t call her Cindy. There is a difference Andrea – the doll’s name began with the letter S. And let’s not forget those memorable Vogue cover shoots among others.
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