Meet the new-look Tory Boys

by Michael Brown The original Tory Boy

TORY boy, how you've changed. I should know, I was the original model, complete with the wide lapels and pinstripes - the inspiration for Rik Mayall's Alan B'Stard and Harry Enfield's spotty youth.

Tory Boy as sociopath, glorying in standing apart from fashion, defiantly out of date, is still the dominant satirical archetype. But the new Tory boys are a different breed. Dedicated followers of hip and cool, they wear a uniform for instant identification: tieless openneck shirts with the two top buttons undone. There is a streak of male narcissism here and a desire to be loved in the same way that we, the Conservatives of the punk generation, were happy to be disliked as long as we kept winning.

New Tories are eager fellow travellers with New Labour - their girlfriends or boyfriends might well be New Labour Commons researchers. But they are envious of their New Labour chums who have the real power and status. It is unclear, therefore, why they are still Tories.

In the 1979 general election.

I posed as Mrs Thatcher's hip sidekick in flared trousers, psychedelic purple paisley shirt with oversized collar, kipper tie and wide lapels.

On being elected, however, I decided that though I was the youngest MP, I did not look like a Tory. So I opted instead for the standard pinstriped, double-breasted Hackett suit, white Marks & Spencer shirt and underwear (Mrs Thatcher loved M&S) and dark-blue tie - the uniform for subsequent generations of Tory MPs. But ageing Thatcherites are losing the style battle with this new breed in CChange (pronounced "see change" rather than a homage to David Bowie), the Tory reform group which is dictating that the suits and ties have got the moth.

Insisting that "how Tories look" is as important as what they stand for, these young metropolitans, aged between 20 and 40, take their inspiration from Michael Portillo's newlook television style.

Ironically, Portillo is a former old Tory boy, but he has always kept up with fashion. His followers are enthralled by his quiff and his tieless, pastel pink, or emerald green shirts.

It is this new style that the young CChange courtiers are following.

Some of them are gay and no longer join the all-male Carlton Club like their closet predecessors but prefer the pounds 300a-year Shadow Lounge private club in Soho. Gay or straight, they drink vodka and Red Bull or Beck's. Tory boys lunch at The Avenue in St James's or the fish restaurant J Sheekey.

Shopping for this new breed, many of whom inhabit lofts in Clerkenwell or Hoxton, is most certainly not M&S, more likely Selfridges. Underpants are Dolce & Gabbana, or Calvin Klein at pounds 20 a pair. In my day we had an aura of Brut or Old Spice, but today's CChange smell of choice is Chanel Allure or CK One.

New Tory Boys are Londonbased throughout the weekend and, unlike their older brethren, do not own green wellies, 4x4s or go to the shires to do country sports. Instead, they spending hours in the gym (Holmes Place) and are toned and fit, where their predecessors were Billy Bunter podges in pullovers.

I doubt, however, that they would even soil their hands getting out on the stump. They want to waltz into safe seats and if they can persuade their mates in Central Office to get them high enough up the party list, they can get to Parliament without ever having met a voter.

But then they will still have to mix with those wretched voters in provincial Britain who are looking for a sniff of coherent Tory policies. The whiff of a designer aftershave will not be enough for them...

Copyright 2002
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