Politics & Power Quote by Ivor Novello

Novello’s line lands like a well-aimed cocktail-party barb: light on its feet, heavy with implication. As a songwriter and matinee idol moving between West End glamour and transatlantic showbiz, he knew exactly how national stereotypes functioned as social shorthand. “Temperamental” is doing double duty here. It flatters (spirited, passionate, exciting) while also dismissing (moody, unruly, hard to manage). The neat trick is that he doesn’t accuse British women of anything outright; he borrows America as the alibi, letting an imported stereotype do the dirty work.

The subtext is a quiet jab at British self-mythology. Early 20th-century Britain liked to picture itself as restrained, composed, properly buttoned-up, especially in contrast to Americans caricatured as louder, brasher, more emotionally legible. Novello punctures that performance. By insisting British girls can match Americans in volatility, he reframes “British reserve” as something closer to a pose - a social costume worn until it slips.

There’s also a show-business logic to the comparison. In entertainment culture, “temperament” is almost a brand attribute: the diva mystique, the unpredictability that reads as authenticity. Novello’s quip suggests that British femininity isn’t merely demure domesticity; it can be dramatic, mobile, modern - and, crucially, marketable.

He makes it work by keeping the sentence almost blandly observational. No punchline, no flourish. The restraint is the joke: an English understatement smuggling in a provocation about gender, class expectations, and the anxieties of an empire watching American modernity set the tempo.