Politics

Gordon without a tie? Things must be getting serious

April 26, 2010
Not quite right?
Not quite right?

You can tell this is now a serious fight for Gordon Brown by the fact he has joined the open-necked shirt brigade. At the weekend, he was on screen in a blinding white shirt, open by a sedate one button at the neck. Is Gordon worried that he looks too buttoned-up beside Nick and Dave? You bet. Alas, there are some men who, when they go for the chest-revealing look, simply look like they forgot to wear a tie.

Gordon is one of them, but by no means the only one. I met Oliver Letwin recently, showing off his New Tory tieless credentials, and he didn't look quite right either. If there's one thing worse than looking too formal, it's looking uncomfortably informal.

The Tories, according to the Daily Telegraph, are now gunning for two Labour seats they hadn't expected to win, to make up for the ones the Lib Dems look set to pinch in Con-Lib Dem marginals. "As one door closes, another one opens," a senior member of the camp tells the Telegraph. Isn't this the political equivalent of Monty Python's Always Look on the Bright Side of Life?