A beauty contest

How much do good looks count when it comes to political leadership?

I've been pondering this apparently frivolous question since seeing Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, deftly handling the controversy surrounding his robust defence of granting permission for the hantavirus-struck cruise ship, MV Hondius, to dock in Tenerife. He is an astute political operator, intelligent, calm and charming, but he is helped by also being strikingly good-looking. Standing at just over 6' 2" tall, he has the same suave, relaxed Gary Cooper-esque bearing that Barack Obama also benefitted from. Frankly, neither Keir Starmer nor Wes Streeting enjoys such a physical advantage, whereas Andy Burnham clearly does. Sánchez's cool charisma stood in stark contrast to the bumbling performance of the rightwing President of the Canarian government, Fernando Clavijo - a far less physically appealing man - to put it politely.

So, in the UK context, what, if anything, can this tell us about the likely success of any potential leadership challenger to Starmer? Well, for starters, the challenger might be a woman, for whom I think the same criterion will be an important factor. Angela Rayner, the former Deputy Prime Minister, having just announced HMRC clearance her over her tax affairs, is free to stand against Starmer in a leadership contest should she wish to. At the risk of being called out for sexism, I would venture to suggest that she is a good-looking woman. (Having assessed the physical attributes of various male politicians, I hope I may be acquitted on the charge of male chauvinism in her case.) She is also a very shrewd political operator who can stand her ground in the male-dominated rough-and-tumble of Westminster politics. As PM she would be a formidable opponent to her female opposite number, Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch.

The Conservative Party itself offers clear examples of how leadership contests can become beauty pageants. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, both William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith faced media scrutiny and negative political comment suggesting their being bald was a serious disadvantage in their aspirations to become Tory Prime Minister. Tellingly, neither of them did. While there is a strong historical, cultural tendency to equate physical beauty with temperamental goodness, this is a superficial judgment, albeit a powerful and persistent one. Nevertheless, it would be naïve to dismiss it as having no bearing whatsoever in politics. At the same time, no-one would ever call Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin or Trump oil paintings. History is littered with pug-ugly despots exerting enormous popular appeal.

Perhaps, after all, the conclusion to be drawn is that handsome is as handsome does.

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