Mary Killen Mary Killen

Your problems solved | 21 February 2004

Etiquette advice from The Spectator's Miss Manners

issue 21 February 2004

Dear Mary…

Q. When one is present at a dinner party where a politician is a fellow guest, I have noticed a tendency for the politician to hold forth with a monologue which brooks no interruption or response from would-be interlocutors. There is nothing party political about this — it seems to happen across the spectrum, from fascist to left-wing. Members of other professions — legal, medical, the racing fraternity and so on — do not indulge in this monomania, so how can one tactfully discourage it?
S.T., Chirton, Wiltshire

A. Even Queen Victoria said of Gladstone, ‘He speaks to me as if I was a public meeting.’ Yet at the very least a politician will usually allow the odd question in order to trigger the monologues, so let yours be a kindly query…. ‘As a politician you work enormously long hours and you should be entitled to enjoy a relaxing and stimulating exchange of ideas when you are at a dinner party.

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