Dressing down Brown
11:00am
Here's another thought about the difference between Blair and Brown in their relations with the business world (see 'The coming Blair nostalgia' in this week's online edition). On Wednesday night, for the eleventh year in a row, Gordon Brown 'snubbed' the City by refusing to conform to the evening dress code for the Mansion House dinner. To wear a black bow tie instead of long, dull, striped one, his spokesmen annually point out, would be to break his socialist principles and pander to elitism. But really his psychoanalyst might add it's an expression of the self-righteous egotism and tortured self-consciousness that make him such an uncomfortable public figure whatever he's wearing. Blair has never made a fuss about that sort of thing, and has even been seen in white tie and tails. Evening dress is not elitist in a true sense (who doesn't dress up when asked to do so by any private party invitation, if only as a matter of politeness?) but merely makes a crowd look uniformly elegant and it costs no more than a decent suit.
Apart from irritating the City every year, our deliberately badly dressed prime minister will soon be snubbing the Queen on state occasions and upsetting veterans at Remembrance ceremonies. If I was Mrs Brown (there's a thought) I'd be shouting 'Get over it, Gordon' and nipping out for a £40 polyester-and-viscose dinner jacket with maroon satin lining from the George range at Asda. That's about as un-elitist as you can get, and even Gordon might look good in it.
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Og
June 21st, 2007 11:45am Report this commentI think we must assume that Gordon also has no idea how to tie a bow tie, so one of those pre-made jobbies with elastic and a hook would be required. Perhaps one of those big floppy velvet fruit bats would suit. I have no doubt that he will start conforming when PM and go conventional. He will become spellbound by the monarch. Come the next general election, we may well even think him a better bet than young Cameron with his bespoke evening wardrobe (and off-the-shelf policies).
JH
June 21st, 2007 1:19pm Report this commentAt about the time of the Campbell 'seriously flawed' allegations I heard somebody describing Gordon Brown as having the social skills of a whelk. In seeing his gratuitous rudeness toward his dinner hosts I think the whelk may feel poorly served.
James T Kirk
June 21st, 2007 4:04pm Report this commentBrown doesn't make it easy for those who instinctively distrust him to find some good in the man. I find it impossible to reconcile his supposedly gentle and charming private persona with his public imitation of a cactus with attitude.
David Wilson
June 21st, 2007 5:08pm Report this commentI saw a story about this in Mandrake in the Sunday Telegraph some time ago saying that even when Brown becomes PM he will still wear his lounge suit. Today some creep in Times talks about how Brown "set the fashion" by not wearing black tie at his first Mansion House event. I can't imagine Brown ever setting any fashion and it's not as if anyone else has ever decided to follow his (bad) example. What is it with Brown and so many papers like The Times - and, even worse, The Daily Mail - that they suck up to him at every opportunity. Surely it can't be a case of their editors wanting knighthoods from him...?
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