Douglas Hurd used to get criticised for wearing a Loden coat. Too foreign for a Conservative Minister.

Trachten does look better on Germans and Austrians.

———-

“Margaret Thatcher’s biographer, Charles Moore, recently penned a spirited assault  on loden coats — green, Tyrolean overcoats popular with a certain type of patrician Tory.

‘Over the years,’ wrote Mr Moore, ‘I have noticed that British men who wear loden coats always have unsound political views.

‘They are usually slightly on the Right, but of the kind which loves the European Union because it is “civilised??  and — though they don’t put it that way — undemocratic.’

It was presumed he was teasing former Conservative ministers Douglas Hurd and  Tristan Garel-Jones,  both loden men.

But what should I see this week bowling towards me along the Westminster cloisters but Oliver Letwin MP, David Cameron’s  strategy supremo in a loden coat.

Mr Letwin, a friend of Mr Moore, laughs: ‘I do indeed wear a loden coat, on the unfashionable grounds that it is particularly warm.’ “

Last edited by Kingston1an (2022-05-31 04:49:41)

I have noticed that Oliver Letwin invariably wears button down shirts as well.  Pretty rare for a British politician.  He taught at Princeton so perhaps that explains it?

Shirley Robin Letwin I remember reading and not fully understanding whilst studying Political Science.  Same, only more so, with Roger Scruton.  I once met a colleague of Scruton's at a party and asked him to advise Scruton I couldn't grasp more than one in a dozen words he wrote. 
TRS does not like Charles Moore: one of our better journalists - not that there are too many to choose from nowadays.  He was apparently no fan of Mrs. T and expressed surprise at being asked to write a biography (hardly the first offering).  Being no fan myself I decided not to waste time on it.  But political biographies once formed a major part of my library, ranging from Burke to Bonar Law and Adlai Stevenson to Henry Kissinger. 
Roy Jenkins was not all he appeared to be.

I would like to read the big Lyndon Johnson biography. He was quite a character.

Simon Jenkins got on the Tube at South Kensington and sat opposite me. Not too keen on a lot of his views.

Robert Caro ‘The years of President Johnson’

Four volumes. Three thousand pages. Fifth volume expected. Gets good reviews.

They’re not all green …. navy blues, blacks, greys all to be had. Very warm and waterproof due to their being made from boiled wool which is very dense, a coat for life I would think. The Tyrol hat I’ll pass on.

I always enjoyed seeing Dougie Hurd in his Loden coat. It went well with his neatly coiffed white thatch and sensible old school frames. And it interests me that a Fogey Fascist like Charles Moore takes exception to its Euro associations. What a fawning prick he is. Old Tories have, tragically, always out-dressed my comrades on the left. One of my fantasies was to see Ivy redefined as a possible wardrobe affiliated to progressive political thinking (drawing on modernism/mid century notions of Ivy for the masses). Fat chance with so many old UK skinheads around and the Muffy White Teeth brigade over the pond.  I was once in posh bookshop Heywood Hill on Curzon Street, doing my salesman schtick, and Kenneth Baker came in wearing an immaculate Loden coat. "Good morning Lord Baker!" the toady staff all chorused. He raised an eyebrow over his trad frames and gave them all a crooked smile. The Scouser in the corner surveyed the scene as the lyric to The Eton Rifles spun around in his head.

^ This is TRS at his best.  I disagree with much of what he says (and, presumably, thinks) but, aping Voltaire, I will defend to the death his right to say it. 
As for the Loden, well, I take on board the comparisons with the Crombie.  Like Woof, I'll pass.

Many lefties are very shabbily dressed.

Socialist worker types are often great judges of ale though and know most of the good pubs in an area. Another reason for TRS to despair.

I occasionally bought the newspaper as I felt sorry for them. Articles have few words and little depth - mostly slogans. I was amused that one of the ones I knew quite well was a skier and the others gave him stick for this.

You meet all types. You either make the most of it or you stay in your own comfort zone.

I tend to inhabit an anti-comfort zone much of the time.  It could be worse.  I could be listening to Archie Shepp. 
I had a lengthy chat with an old leftie a few weeks ago and asked him who he thought would win the next GE.  'Labour', he said (rather mournfully, I thought).  'By default'.  He was an excellent chap in his own way, though curiously thought Francis Beckett to be the spouse of Margaret.  Beckett's 'History Of The British Communist Party' is one of the most amusing political books ever written: all spit, slogans, fisticuffs in the conference hall, then the comrades retiring to private nursing homes when it all got too much for them.

I remember seeing an interview with Charles Moore pre-referendum in which he pointed out it was noticeable that Obama, H.Clinton, Euro leaders and numerous heads of global corporations (all doing very nicely under the arrangements in being at the time) were all going out of their way to tell us how we should vote in our EU referendum i.e. against leaving, when in fact it was nothing to do with them. He had a point.