At the Cenotaph from Michael Foot 1981 to Boris Johnson 2021
40 years ago the late Labour leader Michael Foot was criticised for wearing a ‘donkey jacket’ at the Cenotaph. In fact it was a perfectly decent winter coat (see below). Jeremy Corbyn was also criticised (it was the beard obviously). Boris Johnson by contrast, whose appearance is permanently dishevelled, seems to get a free pass.
I’m no fan of formal dress (you will very rarely find me wearing a tie and even less a suit) but there are occasions when it is appropriate and Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph is one.
Johnson today appeared wearing a blue tie (everyone else wore a black tie) an ill-fitting jacket and his collar was somewhat crumpled. His hairstyle was the familiar, ‘I’ve spent the night on a park bench’ style but it had been combed- forward to cover his bald patch.
Hardly very statesmanlike but then whoever thought Johnson was a statesman..
Michael Foot at the Cenotaph in 1981 wore a rather smart and warm coat. It’s now in the National Museum of Labour History
one of the museum’s most striking exhibits – the coat worn by the Labour Party leader Michael Foot at the National Service of Remembrance, held at The Cenotaph in Whitehall, London, on Remembrance Sunday, 1981. This coat was depicted in the press as a donkey jacket, which is something a manual worker might wear. As a result, it was widely believed that Foot, whose party then supported unilateral nuclear disarmament, had disrespected those who had sacrificed their lives in defence of the nation. He was, the argument went, consequently unfit to become Prime Minister. Yet, if you see the coat in the museum it is perfectly respectable and indeed Foot was praised by the Queen Mother for his choice. But, as Foot’s private papers held in the museum archive show, he received many letters from those who believed he had worn a donkey jacket.
(Steven Fielding 2018)
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