Politicians, beards & electability. The case of Frank Dobson
Frank Dobson died age 79 in 2019. He was a former Cabinet Minister and Beard of the Year 2000.
In 2000 the Observer reported that Dobson had to shave off his trademark beard or face losing the Election for London Mayor where he was the Labour candidate against the then independent Ken Livingstone.
Dobson refused to shave his beard but lost anyway.
The Observer report is here (March 12th 2000)
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2000/mar/12/londonmayor.uk1
It begins:
Faced with the prospect of humiliating defeat at the hands of the clean-shaven Ken Livingstone in London’s mayoral race, Labour’s highly-vaunted strategists have come up with a masterplan: tell Frank Dobson to shave his beard off.
The Beard Liberation Front saluted Frank Dobson for standing up to the clean shaven revisionists of New Labour.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, at the time the suggestion was that the story was an early version of fake news promoted by New Labour spin doctors to underline that Dobson was his own man. However we were later approached by Labour candidates with beards who said that clean shaven photo-fit images of themselves were shown to focus groups to see if it improved their support. Dobson was right to resist the Blairite Barbers.
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