you got it exactly right. "quella là" può render l'idea

la sparo, eh, sia chiaro... non sono sicura perché non mi viene in mente qualcosa di esattamente corrispondente, almeno, al di fuori di espressioni dialettali :)

però visto che dovevo mettere qualcosa... non so, forse "signora di casa" si adatta anche a quel doppio senso, domestico e politico

un riferimento che ho trovato in inglese, con spiegazioni più ancora dettagliate dell'origine dell'espressione:

http://www.minderphenomenon.com/inside2.php

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr 58 mins (2005-05-16 17:06:12 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

alcuni stralci rilevanti dalla pagina linkata sopra:

-- Daley had two children in private schools, lived in White City, and was in awe of his wife, who was never seen in the series, to whom he referred -- almost reverently -- as \'\'er indoors\'. --

e tutto un capitoletto verso la fine della pagina:

--- \'Er Indoors

The third episode saw the first reference to Arthur\'s unseen wife as `\'er indoors\'. ...

The term `\'er indoors\' soon found its way into the vernacular and became an established way of referring to a spouse (replacing \'er with \'im where appropriate). The term was also the basis for a Christmas novelty record in 1983 written by Dennis Waterman. What Are We Gonna Get \'Er Indoors? (backed with Quids and Quavers) featured Cole and Waterman in their Arthur and Terry characters and spent five weeks in the UK pop record charts. The record reached number 21 in the charts and even merited an appearance of the duo on the BBC\'s flagship Top of the Pops music show.

Writer and creator of the series, Leon Griffiths, later said that he first heard the term used by a London minicab driver. The driver could have achieved some degree of fame for coining the expression except that when Griffiths saw the man a second time he denied ever saying it.

It was probably the same taxi-driver described by John Hurry Armstrong in Griffiths\' obituary in The Independent. According to this version, the taxi-driver was a drinking companion of Griffiths and always used the term to describe his wife who was never seen with him in the pub. The story has it that Griffiths was terrified that his friend would be upset when the term was first used in the series. As it turned out, the taxi-driver was not at all concerned, firmly believing that all husbands called their wives \'er indoors and never took them to the pub.

Arthur referred to his wife as \'er indoors in virtually every episode that followed. But she was never seen and we never even got to hear her name. But there was no mention of this in the programme. (In Leon Griffiths\' novel Minder, published as a tie-in three months before the programme first went to air, Arthur Daley\'s wife was called Sarah.) Dave at the Winchester Club would use \'er indoors to refer to her, or occasionally the more formal Mrs Daley. In later episodes, Arthur\'s nephew Ray would refer to her as Auntie. We never saw her but we felt that we knew her well. A simple, `She\'s got these feet\' from Arthur was enough to elicit a whole story and make us realise that we\'ve all met someone just like her at some time or another. Little hints were dropped from week to week until we had built up a mental profile of her: she doesn\'t actually play the piano, `she likes polishing things\' ... `I must get home, \'er indoors is doing fish\' ... `Don\'t keep on, you\'re beginning to sound like \'er indoors. There you go again, that\'s \'er to a T\' ... `I promised to take her shopping at Brent\'s Cross. She\'ll go potty if I don\'t turn up.\' Arthur liked to get out of the house, `what with \'er indoors hoovering under the bed all the time.\' `(She\'s) like dodgy wine: she doesn\'t travel well.\' But she had good taste: `\'er indoors has been agging me for a couple of nice chairs to go with the regency stripe we\'ve had bunged up on the lounge wall.\' ---

Immagino sia stato usato molto ironicamente per la Thatcher, perché il quadretto sopra è un po\' quello del cliché della moglie casalinga rompiscatole che sta a casa mentre il marito va fuori al pub, mentre la Thatcher era la lady di ferro e la prima donna in un ruolo politico così importante, ecc.; o forse, l\'idea è che il suo carattere in politica richiamava quel cliché, non so... :)

Un altro riferimento carino che allude a quel cliché della casalinga:

-- I feel cheated. I was promised a \'New Man\', now I find I have married a \'Old Man\' who is just more cunning than the others. He\'ll be telling me to \'wipe that muck\' off my face next and ***calling me \'Er indoors\'***. Before I know it I\'ll have instructions to cook the Sunday roast while he\'s down the pub.---
http://mcmuffin.co.uk/mr_and_mrs_mcmuffin/2004/07/taking_it_...