The emblematic significance of the pink tie in Cameron's Tory party
In the latest London Review of Books there is a long article by Christopher Tayler, Heir to Blair, on the Conservative party under Cameron. In his research he gives the doubly alarming information that he attended a meeting of local Tories at the University of Kent, addressed by Oliver Letwin, alarming firstly because, when I was a student there, no senior Tory would have got near the campus without a ducking in the Keynes pond. In those days, 1974-78, Tory students would often, as a provocation, invite national figures from the Party to address them, in the hopes that counter-demonstrations would be organised, become violent, and the infant Thatcherites could paint themselves as defenders of free speech against the Bolshevik mob. But at Kent they never dared.
The second disturbing thing is that Tayler reveals that both Letwin and the local Tory student Gauleiter hang pink ties round their necks, as if this were part of a Cameronite uniform. I have several ties in pink, in light coral, salmon, flamingo and shrimp, wearing which I used to think I cut something of a dash. Must I give them up, lest I be mistaken for a hoodie-hugging Thatcherite-in-green-clothing?
Apropos, I have had a wonderful idea: the Tie Blog. Each day I shall photograph the tie I am wearing, and post it to a photo-blog. It will take time, but the end result will be a unique document of man's alienation in the early years of the 21st century.
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