QUEIRAM, ENTÃO, FICAR A SABER (QUASE) TUDO ACERCA DE TRICOLOGIA POLÍTICA, A PROPÓSITO DA INSTABILIDADE CAPILAR DE DAVID CAMERON; O QUE, SE OBSERVAREM COM ATENÇÃO, POR MAIS QUE ELE TENTE ESCONDÊ-LO POR TRÁS DAQUELA POUPA ENFUNADA, É ALGO QUE TAMBÉM ACABARÁ POR INCOMODAR SERIAMENTE O "JOVEM" COELHO

O periclitante Coelho presente e o inevitável Coelho futuro

"Political trichology sounds like a dismal science, but in the age of 'The X Factor', it probably influences as many votes as policies do. As at all dog shows, the condition of the coat is one of the most essential point-scoring categories. It is clear too that there are positive elements and productive strategies in the art and science of political hair — such as layering, colouring and dealing with the cover-up, which, in politics, is always worse than the original crime. (...)

The collapse of authority in the 1960s made a bald leader impossible in the West, ending the era when baldness was a sign of virtue. Alec Douglas Home was the last in a tradition of bald prime ministers — preceded by Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee — who felt entitled to admiration for their age and experience. And the converse was also true. Downing Street’s most luxuriant hair of the past century belonged to Anthony Eden (Suez), Neville Chamberlain (Munich), the young Tony Blair (Iraq) and Lloyd George (back parlours all over the Welsh valleys). (...)

Hair says youth, but young hair says youth more loudly than anything. Cameron, at 43, is the youngest British prime minister since 1812. His deputy, the Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg, is a few months younger still, and has the youngest hair of any political leader in the West. It is frequently tousled in an informal way which — along with his time as a member of the European Parliament — suggests to voters sex in the afternoon. A lot of people like that". (artigo integral aqui)

(2010)