Complacent? Moi?
Written by Alix Mortimer on 20th September 2008 – 11:30 amYikes! What is this unlovely shower of coutured smuggery? Why, it’s a future Conservative cabinet, of course!
Thanks to society magazine Tatler, 10 young Conservatives - billed as the party’s stars of the future - were treated to a makeover, transforming them from dour political animals to fashionable clothes horses.
Tatler says the photo shoot, involving several parliamentary candidates in marginal seats up and down the country, proves “David Cameron’s Notting Hill Toryism reaches further than leafy W11″.
The men wore Gieves & Hawkes, Crombie and Moschino, while the women wriggled into dresses by the likes of Yves Saint Laurent and Giambattista Valli.
The right wing’s wunderkind (I say “kind“, but actually they cluster around my age; how can they be this smug already? It’s taken me this long just to get the hang of a slightly knowing chuckle) are presented alongside their supposed future cabinet job with a little write-up. Interestingly, and unusually for a bunch of young Tories, not one seems to have worked in PR. Shows, doesn’t it.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Obviously this was all terrific larks, just a bit of fun, all very tongue in cheek, and anyone who doesn’t see the funny side or takes it seriously or just gibbers into their sickbag with abject terror at the shape of things to come, well, those people simply lack a sense of humour, and what can you expect from plebs people who aren’t Conservatives? Alas for the young japesters, this would seem to include David Cameron and his People, who are said to be “exasperated” at the article’s revelation suggestion that Tories are self-satisfied gloaters with no grip on reality.
Anyone fancy grabbing this to use as campaign material, or maybe just an emetic, the full piece is in the October issue of Tatler, full title, I want to sell you a Tory: top Tory totty.
Posted in Opposition watch
20th September 2008 at 6:43 pm
Just hoping any passing tories might be willing to comment on the possibility of complacency, arrogance and premature triumphalism.
Are there any odds on the volume of champagne which will be consumed in Birmingham?
20th September 2008 at 7:03 pm
Wonder if we’re to expect a similar style photo shoot featuring the LDV team.
I’m sure Will, Alex, Mark and Stephen can’t wait for an excuse to get out their best Yves-Saint Laurent dresses
20th September 2008 at 8:27 pm
Gosh, if anyone wants to make us over, I’ll be at the front of the queue. I think the rest of them have a pretty sharp fashion sense.
Don’t get Dr P started on ladies clothing without labels!
20th September 2008 at 8:41 pm
It seems that the New Tories are a paste up version of last years New New Labour. If Blair was still there trying to renew the Labour Party, he would have snared a fashion slot with more cred than a Tatler one.
And don’t worry about finding smug difficult. Among LibDems it is in short supply and less demand.
20th September 2008 at 11:25 pm
Since when has Ed Davey’s seat in Kingston and Surbiton been marginal?
21st September 2008 at 1:36 am
Um Mary it had a majority of 56 in 1997 and a 15,000 Tory majority five years before.
I believe that the Hook and Cheesington council ward had the largest Lib Dem majority of any ward in London in 2002 and was won by just 15 votes in 2006, so there is no such thing as a Lib Dem safe seat.
21st September 2008 at 11:52 am
I absolutely agree about not being complacent.
But it is still not usual to refer to a seat with a majority of over 8000 last time as ‘marginal’. If the Telegraph uses that term in that way, then it is clearly misleading the public.