Why it's fine to play the crying game

Why is OK for Alex Ferguson to cry as he announces his resignation but not OK for George Osborne to cry at his heroine’s funeral?

In my book it’s always OK for anyone, male or female, to cry. Indeed for the most part I’m tempted to think better of someone who in adult life is prepared to get in touch with and release their emotions.

It’s a funny old world. It’s fine for us to laugh, but when it comes to tears, dare we be so open? The more I travel, the more I become aware of just how locked up we Brits are.

One of the great boons of recent immigration has been the influx of young, more emotional Latin blood – Spanish, Italian, French, Brazilian. Maybe we are picking something up from them in this regard.

I guess I’d be alarmed if George Osborne burst into tears as he opened the budget box, just as I’d be worried if Alex Ferguson responded to a dodgy line call in the same way.

But being candid about the utter grief Sir Alex felt in giving up a 26-year-long romance with football and its players is not only understandable but necessary.

I have cried on the news. I have cried reporting in the field. I’m better for it. One does one’s best never to let it show, but if we in public life are not touched by what we witness and experience, then we are not giving a true account of events.

I remember linking an Egyptian father in London, live and in full vision, with his protesting son in Tahrir Square. He told us that “never in my life, did I ever expect these events to come about”. Then he cried, uncontrollably. I defy anyone not to join him in so emotionally charged a moment.

We are too steeped in the playground – “Cry baby bunting! Cry baby bunting!”

Let’s indeed cry for Argentina..and anything or anyone else we fancy shedding a tear for. Cry on, Fergie – your horse may have come second in the 3.45 at Chester yesterday, but Butterfly McQueen will win one day – and you’ll have the last laugh!

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