Desire for something more exotic.

The general election was called today. The Queen has dissolved Parliament and new elections will be held on Thursday 6th May. It is an exciting moment, and I will be blogging my thoughts on the cultural aspects of the election period.

Watching the early reports, John Sopal standing on a raised platform (on what must be the steps of the George V statue on College Green) made much of the fact that class is going to be a factor in Labour's election campaign. Gordon Brown in his opening announcement made the point that he is from an "ordinary" background. John Sopal asked Home Secretary Alan Johnson whether Labour would be running a toffs-in-top-hats negative campaign against the Tories.



Above: The Guardian at the weekend promoted a "step outside posh boy" t-shirt showing an agressive Gordon Brown.



Above: There is further evidence of this negative campaigning on the Powerpoint for Labour site: http://powerpointforlabour.wordpress.com/

I am not sure this approach is going to be successful. It didn't work in the Tatton by-election. And Labour also have their share of rich and privileged leaders (this fact has not gone unnoticed).



Above: the top hat as a symbol of poshness may not resonate particularly well - Clement Attlee (a secular saint among socialists) even wore a top hat in the supposedly egalitarian 1960s.

And there is an increasing body of evidence that the "poshness" and privilege of the Tories may play in their favour.

In part this is related to the death (in the United Kingdom) of "mainstream urban" as a cultural influence. Why this is happening is open to debate. Possibly it stems from Barack Obama telling young men in America to "pull their pants up"; possibly it is related to lack of authenticity for the style when transplanted across the Atlantic; possibly it is due to the recession and a consequent mood of seriousness and formality.

But the reason may simply be a mundane boredom with the urban style and a desire for something more exotic.

The famous/infamous Bullingdon photograph showing David Cameron and Boris Johnson in ethnic costumes as exotic as any feather-bedecked New Guinea tribesman seems to have inspired curiosity rather than ridicule.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2007/03/bullingdon_and_blair.html



Above: the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of the influential magazine GQ Style reproduced the Bullingdon photograph as a cartoon, together with a quote from Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. I have looked for some minutes at this image and I cannot detect any irony. This combination of image and text seems to be genuine homage (the ridicule from Anthony Blanche has a psycho-sexual undercurrent and is not ridicule at all...).



Above: also in the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of GQ Style is a fashion photo spread based on the Bullingdon look. Being in such an influential magazine we have to take seriously the idea that this is one of the key themes for the months even years ahead. There will, no doubt, be much wailing and gnashing of teeth in some quarters, but there you are.

Finally, just on the subject of the demise of mainstream urban I was interested in John Harris's article about suburbia and the non-metropolitan condition:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/apr/03/suburbia-pop-betjeman-john-harris