The slob culture

Simon Heffer deplores the fashion for dressing down. It’s ugly and disrespectful and leaves men looking like idiots

We all know that life under the Blair Terror can be pretty grim, but I am beginning to fret about the increasing signs of a collapse in national morale. I do not refer to the well-documented exodus of Britons to live abroad, or to our sense of defeat in the face of rising crime and seemingly unlimited taxation, or even to the semi-formal establishment of the Church of England as an arm of the light entertainment industry. I refer, of course, to the demolition of our pride and self-respect to the extent that many even quite civilised men can no longer bring themselves to dress appropriately when they go out in public.

This topic has been of great interest to old bores for most of the last century. We recall, for example, His late Majesty King George V’s stinging rebuke to Lord Birkenhead, a picture of whom the King saw one morning in a newspaper. Birkenhead had been summoned from the country to attend an emergency Cabinet meeting on a bank holiday, and was wearing a rather smart tweed suit. The King was outraged that one of his ministers should be seen in London attired in such a fashion. Then there was Evelyn Waugh, who took the spendid step of writing to every man who attended his daughter’s coming-out ball wearing a black tie to upbraid them for not wearing a white one. These may be taken as extreme representations of the concern, but in the last few years the lowest common denominator has taken a serious plunge downwards.