Are Beards Electable Update: the case of Vaughan Gething
Image in politics is important, whether we like it or not, hence the rather silly recent discussion about whether Keir Starmer is carrying too much weight.
Beards are part of this and below is a post relating to Philip Cowley’s interesting perspective on this.
The election by Senedd members of Vaughan Gething as Wales First Minister this week is of current relevance. Mr Gething is the first black leader of any country in Europe and he is also a long time beard wearer.
Not for him the organic ZZ Top approach but a carefully styled and trimmed beard. Does the image suggest his politics and what might it mean for how he approaches the role of First Minister?
Are Beards Electable?
Philip Cowley has written for the House on the question of whether or not beards are electable
https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/professor-see-now-beards-a-turnoff-voters
It’s a subject destined to get a response from the organiser of the Beard Liberation Front (myself)
The hook for the piece seems to be the growing number of Tory MPs- traditionally post-1945- a clean shaven lot (when male)who have grown beards. Presumably the idea was to try and add some much needed gravitas. More recently with an Election looming some have shaved their beards fearing they are a vote loser.
Cowley takes the view that appearance is one aspect of electability- but only one. However he concludes that on election night if a hirsute candidate loses by a few votes they may wish they had shaved their beard.
There is some history here of course.
The Beard Liberation Front famously labelled Tony Blair a clean shaven revisionist (perhaps we were a little kind there) but he had hirsute heavyweights in his Cabinet including Comrades Blunkett, Cook and Dobson.
Frank Dobson was the subject of one of the better known election beard stories when he ran for London Mayor in 2000. The Observer ran a front page story to the effect that Labour had been touting photos of a clean shaven Dobbo to electors to see if they preferred that image. It was suggested that this was an election stunt aimed at the BLF. However later Labour sources (always well informed) told me that in the early 2000s it was regular practice for any Labour candidate with a beard to have it scrutinised for electability In recent times matters have moved on. Surely Prof Cowley has noticed that out of the leaders of the four UK nations two now have beards. Keir Starmer next?
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