Thank goodness Sarah's no First Lady

It's all happened rather quietly, but I've just realised that we no longer have a First Lady in this country.

In the three months since Gordon Brown became prime minister, I can't recall a single outfit worn by his wife or anything she's said and what a relief that is.

When Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, I wasn't interested in what Denis thought about Northern Ireland and I certainly couldn't have cared less about his taste in clothes. On the evidence so far, Sarah Brown takes a similar view of the role of a prime minister's spouse, leaving it to her husband who is, after all, the elected politician in the couple to take centre stage.

This may reflect her own inclination but I can't help wondering if Mrs Brown isn't also very smart. People were ready for a change when the Blairs left Downing Street; while Tony Blair was prime minister, there were times when his wife Cherie got almost as many headlines as her husband, and they weren't always complimentary.

Like Hillary Clinton in the US, we weren't even sure what to call her. It was perfectly reasonable for Cherie to pursue her own career but it was often unclear whether she was speaking as Cherie Booth QC, human rights lawyer, or Cherie Blair, prime minister's wife. She seemed to crave attention and then find it excruciatingly painful when she got it, a trap which Sarah Brown has been careful to avoid.

Being the wife of a party leader isn't easy, as Samantha Cameron is finding out; some Tories are complaining that she spends too much time on her own career and would like her to appear more often with her husband at political functions. But it may also be that David Cameron doesn't want to draw too much attention to his wife's aristocratic connections and is content, for the moment at least, for her to pursue her own interests..

With her background in PR, Sarah Brown may have read the politics more cannily than either Mrs Cameron or Mrs Blair. In a democracy, voters are suspicious of two-for-the-price-of-one deals and they certainly don't like the sense that politicians' spouses are making their own bid for political influence. The prime minister's wife (or husband) can have a successful life and career in their own right but we don't like it when they appear to want to share the limelight.

So far, Mrs Brown has maintained a clear line between her husband's role in Downing Street and her own, and she's having an easier time of it. She's neither a First Lady nor a traditional wife, and we're all more relaxed as a result.