The Tiers of Tears

My eyes were as puffy as those of Rachel Reeves this week. “No, I, am not actually crying”, I had to say to a couple of people as tears kept rolling out of my piggy red eyes. I was simply having a severe allergic reaction to something brought on, I guess by the heat. One minute I was fine, the next I was weeping and itching and in a bit of a state.

Luckily the bond markets didn’t know and in fact nothing much happened except the nice man in the corner shop looked alarmed when I insisted that I was not crying.

He was only showing concern and my denial made it worse because tears are evidence of an emotional state that humans are geared up to recognise and react to.

The response to the tears of Reeves has been visceral. Either you felt sorry for her – I did – that image of her choking back sobs behind Starmer will never leave her or you did some whataboutery. “Who cares about the weakest people whose benefits she wants to take away? What of their tears?”

Well perhaps yes, but that doesn’t stop this spectacle of a powerful women breaking down in public from being a spectacle. Picture editors were homing in on her face. Those present said it was uncomfortable but that has not prevented a lot of tear analysis, which I am obviously indulging in too. Is it OK to cry at work? Should women even be at work? Or be given any responsibility ever?

Some said if it was a personal matter as Reeves said it was, then we MUST be given the reason. Must we? Is no one allowed an interior life that we don’t know about? Is that what we demand of those in high office? Churchill wept in public often, Obama a few times. Are women’s tears different to men’s?

Are some tears more equal than others ?