A young woman with short blonde hair turned towards the camera, smiling. She is wearing light clothes and a hat with a crucifix necklace. She is sitting in Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in a waiting chair with her luggage in the seat next to her.
Mandy Rice-Davies uttered the phrase.

"Well he would, wouldn't he?",[n 1] commonly referred to as Mandy Rice-Davies Applies (shortened to MRDA), is a British political phrase and aphorism that is commonly used as a retort to a self-interested denial.

The phrase was said by the Welsh model Mandy Rice-Davies during the 1963 trial of the British osteopath Stephen Ward. Ward had been made a scapegoat for the Profumo affair, a scandal involving the secretary of state for war, John Profumo. Profumo had had an extramarital affair with Rice-Davies's friend, the model Christine Keeler, lied about that affair to Parliament, and then publicly admitted that he had misled the House. Ward was tried for living on the earnings of prostitution; the prosecution alleged that Rice-Davies and Keeler were paid for sex by members of the British elite, and that they then paid Ward from their earnings. During the trial, Ward's attorney James Burge asked Rice-Davies whether she was aware that Lord Astor had denied having an affair with her; Rice-Davies replied "Well he would, wouldn't he?"

Since its widespread adoption following the Ward trial, political commentators, communications experts, and psychologists have interpreted "Well he would, wouldn't he?" as a political phrase that is used to indicate that the speaker believes that another person is making a self-interested denial. They have also stated that the phrase functions as a commonsense retort to the lies of elite political figures. The phrase has been included in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations since 1979.

Background

Profumo affair

Key figures in the Profumo affair
A black and white close-up photograph of John Profumo, a man wearing a dark suit, spotted tie and serious expression with receding black hair looking to the left.
Profumo
A black and white close-up photograph of Christine Keeler, a slim woman wearing a dark coat with long dark hair and a slight smile, looking to the left.
Keeler

The Profumo affair concerned the secretary of state for war, John Profumo, who beginning in July 1961 had an extramarital affair with the model Christine Keeler. He denied this to the House of Commons in 1963 when Keeler's private life became public; weeks later he was found to have misled Parliament.[3] The scandal severely damaged the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan,[4] who in October 1963 resigned for reasons of ill health.[5] Interest in the scandal was heightened by Keeler's involvement with Yevgeny Ivanov, a naval attaché at the Soviet embassy, which meant a possible national security risk. Keeler had been introduced to both Ivanov and Profumo through her friendship with Stephen Ward, an osteopath and socialite who rented a cottage on the grounds of the Cliveden estate—where Keeler and Profumo met—from Lord Astor.[6]

Investigation and trial of Stephen Ward

After Profumo revealed that he had lied, the police began to investigate Ward, who was arrested and charged with living "wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution". The police based their case on allegations that Keeler and her friend Mandy Rice-Davies, a Welsh showgirl and model, had been paid for sex and had subsequently given money to Ward.[7] Rice-Davies was briefly jailed in Holloway prison until she agreed to testify against Ward; the barrister Geoffrey Robertson stated that the Macmillan government had her arrested to coerce her testimony.[8]

Cross-examination and utterance

On 28 June 1963 Rice-Davies was cross-examined at Ward's committal proceedings at Marylebone magistrates' court,[9] appearing the day after Keeler. The journalist Clive Irving, in his book on the chronology of the Profumo affair—Scandal '63—wrote that Rice-Davies

wore a simple, grey dress and a hat of red petals, and unlike Miss Keeler she had a simple spontaneity ... Miss Rice-Davies's voice bubbled up and conquered the architecture. She seemed not bright enough to be a liar, and the drift of the questioning obviously eluded her. Her face ... was pale, like Keeler's, and her eyes had the same heavy make-up, which began to run when a hot sun came through the skylight of the court.[10]

During the proceedings Ward's attorney James Burge questioned her about her alleged affair with Lord Astor. Burge's question to Rice-Davies is variously given as "Do you know Lord Astor has made a statement to the police saying that these allegations of yours are absolutely untrue?"[11] to "Are you aware that Lord Astor denies any impropriety in his relationship with you?".[12] Rice-Davies is reported to have replied: "Well he would, wouldn't he?", followed by laughter.[13] Newspapers also reported that Burge and Rice-Davies had the following exchange:

James Burge: Do you know the Indian doctor has made a statement to the police saying that these allegations are absolutely untrue?

Mandy Rice-Davies: I can't help that, can I?[14]

Rice-Davies's retort to Lord Astor was widely reported in the press the day after her testimony;[15] the Evening Standard featured the phrase above the headline on its front page.[16]

Use and analysis

"Well he would, wouldn't he?" is also commonly referred to as Mandy Rice-Davies Applies (MRDA),[17] and is an aphorism.[14] The phrase is used as a retort to a self-interested denial.[18] It has been interpreted in political, rhetorical, and linguistic terms as representing a counter to political elites, an ironic response to self-interested criticism, and a means of dismissing a person's opinion.

Political use

As a political phrase, "Well he would, wouldn't he?" has been interpreted as a form of defiance against elite political figures. The Scotsman and The New York Times, in their obituaries of Rice-Davies, wrote that her response represented "a new lack of deference" by ordinary people toward the political figures of post-World War II austerity governments,[19][n 2] and The Independent commented that it "became a potent symbol of changing times".[20] Robert McCrum, in his review of Peter Stanford's biography of Bronwen Astor, stated that the phrase was "among the most devastating sentences uttered in the English language in the last half century", and that it caused the Macmillan government's "careful reconstruction of pre-war social certainties" to be "finally exposed as utterly fraudulent".[21] In a 2015 article Gerard Hastings, an expert in social marketing, wrote that the phrase captured the idea of vested interest, and that with its utterance, Rice-Davies had exposed that people in positions of power are willing to cover up their misdeeds and put their own interests above national security.[22] The psychologists Derek Edwards and Jonathan Potter have suggested that Rice-Davies's use of ordinary language undermined the authority of elite attorneys and the aristocracy's denials.[18] The historian Ged Martin said that the phrase represents a truism that some evidence presented in self defence should be doubted "because it is inconceivable that its source would have said anything else".[23]

Linguistic analysis

Scholars have analysed "Well he would, wouldn't he?" in linguistic and rhetorical terms as a statement that uses linguistic modality to dismiss another person's opinion as self-interested, obvious, or irrelevant. Daniel Carroll, Anne-Marie Simon-VandenBergen, and Sonia Vandepitt said that the phrase is a famous example of "usuality modalisation", which can be used to "present a personal opinion in terms of a general rule". They said that the phrase, as an if-then statement, enables the speaker to cast an opponent's utterance as "'too obvious to be worthy of comment' or irrelevant to the discussion", while showing that they are not surprised.[24] The philosopher Timothy Williamson stated that Rice-Davies's statement was an effective explanation of Lord Astor's denial because his self interest was evident, notwithstanding whether she was being truthful; he suggested that Rice-Davies could have instead said "Well he did, didn't he?"[25]

Edwards and Potter contended that Rice-Davies's response rebutted (through use of the modal verb "would")[26] an implied criticism from Lord Astor (that Rice-Davies was lying) by ironically suggesting that he was known as a self-interested person. They also stated that the phrase signifies to the listener that because the speaker of the original claim is self-interested, their opinion can be discounted.[27] Likewise, the conversation analysts Alexa Hepburn and Sally Wiggins wrote in their 2007 book Discursive Research in Practice that Rice-Davies's statement should be evaluated from the subjective standpoint of "Astor's stake or interest in the matter" and his "clear motive to lie", rather than from an objective statement of reality.[28]

Legacy

"Well he would, wouldn't he?" has been included in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (as "he would, wouldn't he") since 1979,[29] which, according to her biographer Richard Davenport-Hines, "delighted" Rice-Davies.[30] In its obituary of Rice-Davies, The Washington Post said that the phrase "endeared her to the public".[31] The 1992 edition of Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Catch Phrases states that the phrase "acknowledges the exasperating, and predictably contrary, reaction of someone known to the speaker(s)".[32]

Notes and references

Notes

  1. ↑ Quoted by contemporary sources as "he would, wouldn't he?";[1] sometimes misquoted as "well he would say that, wouldn't he?"[2]
  2. ↑ In 2014 Rice-Davies said: "It was the age of deference, wasn't it? People still doffed their caps. I'm afraid I have no deference."[20]

References

  1. ↑ Knowles 2014; Elliott 2013.
  2. ↑ Tonkin 2013; Sherwin 2019.
  3. ↑ Chorley 2023, pp. 158–161.
  4. ↑ Horne 1989.
  5. ↑ Thorpe 2010, pp. 548, 564–565.
  6. ↑ Tweedie 2013.
  7. ↑ Irving, Hall & Wallington 1964, pp. 119 and 149.
  8. ↑ Robertson 2014.
  9. ↑ "Second day of the Ward case". The Observer.
  10. ↑ Irving, Hall & Wallington 1964, pp. 196–197.
  11. ↑ "Second day of the Ward case". The Observer; Chorley 2023, p. 162.
  12. ↑ Hepburn & Wiggins 2007, p. 32, quoting Edwards & Potter 1992, p. 117.
  13. ↑ Elliott 2013; Sherwin 2019.
  14. 1 2 Elliott 2013.
  15. ↑ Stanford 2014.
  16. ↑ Front page. Evening Standard.
  17. ↑ Halls 2020.
  18. 1 2 Edwards & Potter 1992, pp. 116–118.
  19. ↑ "Profumo scandal's Mandy Rice-Davies dies aged 70". The Scotsman; Cowell 2014.
  20. 1 2 Maume 2014.
  21. ↑ McCrum 2000.
  22. ↑ Hastings 2015, p. 1226.
  23. ↑ Martin 2004, p. 29.
  24. ↑ Carroll, Simon-VandenBergen & Vandepitt 1986, pp. 54–55 & n. 4.
  25. ↑ Williamson 2020, p. 194.
  26. ↑ Edwards 2006, p. 498 & n. 10.
  27. ↑ Edwards & Potter 1992, pp. 116–118; Antaki & Horowitz 2010, pp. 170–171.
  28. ↑ Hepburn & Wiggins 2007, p. 32.
  29. ↑ Elliott 2013; Halls 2020; Knowles 2014.
  30. ↑ Davenport-Hines 2018.
  31. ↑ "Mandy Rice-Davies, figure in Profumo sex scandal, dies at 70". The Washington Post.
  32. ↑ Partridge 1992, p. 357.

Sources

Books and journal articles

Dictionaries

Newspaper articles

Other

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