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Since last Thursday a lot has been written across Bristol and the rest of the country about the fact that David Cameron (Call me Dave) has an immaculate coiffed hairstyle that fairly screams privilege. I agree. Unlike the “whole family for £15 Mondays” haircut sported by Nick Clegg (Steady Girls), or the” it’s my £3.50 so there” worn by Gordon Brown (Don’t Smile), Cameron favours a look that is reminiscent of the long dusty halls of Eton and Oxford, of Boasters and Fags, the click of leather on willow and the casual rites of the back passage. 

It has been suggested by pollsters (by which I mean nerds) that this may cost him votes in what is to be the closest general election in living memory. I disagree. To distance oneself from great hair is to distance oneself from the core of the Tory vote. These are people who hold great hair in high regard and respect it above all things. The Tory voting landscape is the zenith of function over style. These are people to whom the cowlick is considered slightly “fast”, to whom the comb over is sacrosanct and to whom anyone with an alkaline perm is almost certainly a disease ridden slattern.

These are the people, mark ye, who, much like cavemen pausing in their efforts to coat each other in doody in order to worship the sun, kept the Conservative party in power for 18 years, the longest term for a political party to retain power since Pitt the younger. They had no choice. The inspirational thick, luxuriant and bold hairstyles of that Tory front bench took no prisoners. Thatcher! Heseltine! Gummer! Their very silhouettes would strike fear into the hearts of good men in opposition; men once proud and brave were reduced, in the eyes of the British Public (God bless you all), to loathsome, snivelling , crawling things, broken apologists for the hirsute nature of their pillows and shower drains.

By Friday it was “clear” (to indulge in this year’s political buzzword) that Cameron had taken notice of the nerds. Instead of the sculpted, blown dry, Dan-Dare-Pilot-Of-The-Future spectacular that the Tory heartland had come to know and love, Call me Dave stepped lightly into the early morning sunshine with 3 or 4 hairs carefully teased out of place on his crown and the suggestion of a curl falling lazily over his forehead. Mumsnet rejoiced! The Women’s Institute howled. Call me Dave had embarked on a wild new direction without precedent, looking, as he did, like Roger Moore just after a minor scuffle with a low ranking henchman.

My uncle Derek enjoyed a fairly successful career as a henchman during the late 70s and 80s (The heyday of the henchman) but was forced to take work as a taxi driver in Margate after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. The money’s not as good but he chooses his own hours. Mind you, “Glasnost” is still a dirty word in his house.

STOP PRESS:

Gordon Brown has just accused a little old lady from Rochdale of being a “bigot” after she had the temerity to mention to him that one of the things that she was worried about in her area was the influx of eastern European migrants. This concern was one of many seemingly legitimate concerns she had expressed to him as she met him by chance near her home. Gordon Brown left in his big roguish Jag with his microphone turned on and was overheard bitching to an aid that he should not have been put in that situation. 

It is not the first time a politician has been caught out in this manner (the Pope’s now infamous “Nice tits!” gaffe springs to mind) and it will not be the last. The free British press however, has somehow managed to miss the bigger story of the day: That was not Mr. Brown’s microphone to take. He stole it! The Prime Minister is a thief! Does this happen after every photo opportunity? Is it an ongoing problem? Is the loss of electrical equipment a price that news channels simply have to pay for access to the Prime Minister? His bedroom must look like Tandy for goodness sake.

What I cannot stand is the horror. The knowledge that Mrs. Gillian Duffy of Rochdale will now be championed in the free British press as some sort of social reference point for the entire election cuts me to the core. She will be appearing in interviews and being asked to comment on the minutia of the policies of all political parties. She will be in the news every day until May 6th and for a few days after that.

She will, one day, have her own chat show called “As I see it” and be famed for her no-nonsense approach to sensitive issues. Her path to fame is assured and the keen observer will have noticed that she took a call from Max Clifford today while simultaneously being interviewed by Sky and The BBC. Anyway, it was either Max Clifford or the producers of Gordon Browns favourite TV Show – ‘Britain’s Bigot Talent’.

Tom Mitchell is a freelance writer who enjoys a pint, a cigarette and a hat - but not necessarily in that order.

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