Seven famous winks that rocked the world

Of all the things you can do with your face, a wink is the most enigmatic. It is also the most economical. The less of a wink there is, the more effective it is, like Marmite. By closing one eyelid for a fraction of a second, you can convey deceit, warmth, wit, sympathy, solidarity, mischief, affection, friendship or lust. The wink is a signal transmitted at odds with the rest of the conversation. It says “we are in this together, you and me, not like the rest of this lot”.

Context is all. This secret signal can be unwelcome. It usually is. Like other forms of power abuse, the wink can be non consensual but public. A wife winking conspiratorially at a husband across a dull drinks party is one thing. It says, “I’m thinking of you, we can get out of here soon.” An older man winking at a younger female co-worker is about as subtle and welcome as a hand on the knee during pudding. Nobody ought to wink, but certainly not unless you are absolutely certain that the wink is welcome. It is a pity that the people who tend to wink most often are the last people who ought to.

Dominic Raab, for example. After a brisk exchange with Angela Rayner at PMQs this week, the Deputy Prime Minister appeared to close his right eye for a moment. It had the subtle charm of a man at the end of a golf club who had just spied a friend’s daughter behind the bar. Raab’s team claimed he had been winking at another Labour MP, Ian Murray, who had been braying. They are fooling nobody.

Raab’s wink was a reminder that the gesture evolved in times before everything was filmed in high definition. Part of the illicit power of the pervy wink was that it was deniable. No longer. Anyone with the internet can see Raab’s gesture replayed in gruesome slow motion. I suppose winking makes a change from squinting up at the sun from his lounger as Kabul fell.

Raab is not the only public figure to have got in trouble for winking. History is littered with winkers, almost all of them men who should know better. Here we rapidly close and lift the lid on some of them.

Cristiano Ronaldo

During England’s knock-out game against Portugal at the World Cup in 2006, Ronaldo proved a wink can be enough to get an entire nation frothing at the bit. When Wayne Rooney tangled with the Portuguese defender Ricardo Carvalho, Ronaldo turned to the referee like a character in an opera pleading for his life. Rooney was duly sent off.

As England’s talismanic centaur headed to the showers, Ronaldo turned to the Portuguese bench and winked. Don’t worry, the wink said, it’s all a bit of fun. And so 36 years of hurt became 40.

Tony Abbott

In 2014, the former Australian Prime Minister appeared on a radio show where he fielded a call from a 67-year-old woman who had been forced to work on an adult sex line to make ends meet. While she recounted her plight, Abbott winked across the studio table at the host, Jon Faine. Abbott’s people claimed he was simply saying he would field what was a surprising question. What the world saw was a couple of fellas enjoying a smirky chuckle at a pensioner’s expense.

George Bush

Proof that sometimes the wink can be a diplomatic tool. In 2007, President George W Bush was introducing the Queen at a ceremony on the White House lawn when he stumbled over his dates. He said the Queen had been in the States in 1776 helping America celebrate its bicentennial, rather than 1976. Realising his error, Bush winked over at the Queen. This wink worked because it was clear that he was saying simply: sorry, Your Majesty. The monarch’s initial steely glare quickly softened. “She gave me a look,” he said, “that only a mother could give a child.”

Ian Paisley

When Theresa May was forced into her awkward coalition with the DUP in 2017, the DUP’s Ian Paisley Jr chose to mark the announcement in Parliament with a fleeting wink. This was pure toxic male power. They had her on the ropes, they knew it, and there was nothing she could do about it. The wink as a smug triumph, disguised as a bit of fun.

Mikail Gorbachev

A wink that helped end the Cold War. Miklos Nemeth, the former leader of Hungary, was sitting in on a special meeting of the Warsaw Pact nations in 1989. Hungary had started taking down part of its border fence with Austria, enabling thousands of people to cross the border. Gorbachev had said he would not oppose the dismantling of the wall, but other nations had complained. Nemeth remembers Gorbachev “winking” at him during the meeting, letting him know everything would be alright. Perhaps the most consequential wink in history.

Donald Trump

As befitting his big panto energy, President Trump is an inveterate winker. It’s one of the many tricks in his locker that make his audience wonder what’s going on. If you wink as you say something outrageous, you give the audience permission to see what they want to see. His fans see a streak of humour, evidence that he is to be taken with a pinch of salt. His opponents see a creep, unable to say anything with a straight face. He winks during speeches, at journalists, for no apparent reason at all. At his summit with Vladimir Putin in 2018, he seemed to wink at the Russian president during their joint press conference. Was he hinting at collusion? Acknowledging the kompromat? We will never know. Sometimes a winker is just a winker.

Duchess of Cornwall

Proving that Camilla can give as good as she gets, when the Duchess of Cornwall and her husband had the Trumps for tea in 2019, she played nice. While the cameras whirred and clicked, she beamed a full royal rictus grin. Why of course, there was nothing she would rather be doing than welcoming the President and his wife to Clarence House. That is, until the final moments, when she turned her head away from her departing guests and flexed her left orbicularis oculi muscle towards her bodyguards. The wink was as elegant and practised as a Simone Biles backflip. “I know,” it said to the world, “but what can be done?” Wit, grace and resignation. Three concepts the nation would thank her for teaching to Dominic Raab.