There’s not one damn thing I like about New York’s mayor Zohran Mamdani. I don’t like his politics, his religion, his flagrantly daft promises. And I absolutely hate the fact that – while not my type – he is, objectively, extremely good-looking.
Aren’t there any politicians I like who look good?
Is it just me, or is it always irritating when people whose politics you hate are easy on the eye? Justin ruddy Trudeau – again, not my type, but so cardigan-catalogue male-modelly that he could even get away being caught in blackface again by going on TV and simply looking sad. That Canada’s ex-PM has ended up with Katy Perry – a similarly hollow sex-object who has somehow managed to mistake themselves for some sort of deep thinker – is perfection.
Then there’s Kamala bloody Harris. I can’t stand the babbling fool, but she looks like one of those single-minded, dual-heritage glamorous business babes from a daytime American soap opera. The sodding ‘Squad’ – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley – of young sparky Democrats could be a girl band, albeit one that has hung around a bit too long and are on the verge of splitting up, probably due to a pre-performance squabble over who gets to wear the best keffiyah.
The British equivalent would be the Three Disgraces on the Labour benches; Lisa Nandy, Stella Creasy and Angela Rayner (a brunette, blonde and redhead to satisfy every preference) who showed an attractive girl group energy until they drank the Trans-maid Kool-Aid. But though these may be reasonably foxy foes, it’s unfortunate that the real looker of British politics is Michelle O’Neill, First Minister of Northern Ireland and vice president of Sinn Fein – a raving beauty in more ways than one. Then there’s the far less offensive Penny Mordaunt; ineffably daft views on ‘gender’ but my goodness, that image of her carrying that sword could have been used on the cover of a best-selling romantasy fiction novel.
Though we’d all probably agree that Mordaunt is more-ish, beauty can be in the eye of the beholder, as is oft remarked. Mrs Thatcher was a handsome and well-groomed woman, but when François Mitterrand opined that she had ‘the mouth of Marilyn Monroe’ he was obviously nursing a massive, vision-bending crush on his apparent enemy. John F Kennedy was meant to be a total hottie, but the pop eyes and the Bugs Bunny voice make this an absolute mystery to me; perhaps it was simply that he had the bloom of youth whereas others American presidents had looked either frail or stodgy, and was beautiful by proxy due to the loveliness of his wife Jacqueline.
Aren’t there any politicians I like who look good? Peter Kyle (who also smells gorgeous), Kemi Badenoch (especially when photographed off duty without make-up) and the now-retired Kate Forbes (face of a schoolgirl, heart of a lion.) But none in the league of Barack Obama, who Fleabag once memorably abused herself to online while he made one of his highly serious speeches, as her boyfriend slept beside her.
On a less lurid note, I recall the years when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were both a team and deadly rivals. Blair was the conventionally attractive man (such a pretty boy in his youth that, according to the Times, his nickname at school was ‘Miranda, because of his fresh face and long hair’) but Brown had a Heathcliff element going on which made his boss look somewhat bland. The brilliant teenage writer Emma Forrest, I recall, wrote a long eulogy to him in a newspaper, in which various immature women – including myself and my late sister-in-law Charlotte Raven – openly drooled over the chancellor. I wish I could quote myself from it directly and give you all a cheap laugh but it appears to have been wiped from t’internet.
So yes, most attractive politicians are ones I dislike. But there’s one thing that we on the ‘Right’ (aka freedom-lovers) do have in the political arena that the Left don’t; gorgeous political commentators and broadcasters. We’ve got Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Inaya Folarin Iman, Coleman Hughes, Rita Pahani, Megyn Kelly, Winston Marshall, Louise Perry, Poppy Coburn, Samara Gill, Suzie Kennedy – not to mention several Spectator staffers whose blushes I’ll spare. (Hi, Madeline!) And of course the king of the heap, Douglas Murray, in whom extreme physical beauty and a diamond-tipped pick-axe of a mind create a matchless combo.
But for the most part, politics is showbiz for ugly people; the beautiful have no part in it. They already have more than enough power and admiration.
I do hope that Zohran Mamdani is already making plans to get an agent and move out to the West Coast, leaving the serious stuff of life to others. Because looking at the track record of those who come to power believing that they have espied the legendary Magic Money Tree, he’ll be needing a new career quite soon, I’d wager.
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