Are you a Tweedy or a Trainer?

‘Too tweedy? Goodness gracious me!’ Rory Stewart sounded startled. A contender for the Tory leadership, he was being interviewed by the BBC’s Paddy O’Connell last Sunday morning on Radio 4’s Broadcasting House. O’Connell asked the MP for Penrith and the Border how he responded to the criticism that ‘the Conservative party is too tweedy’.

A short discussion of the relationship between 21st-century Toryism and tweed followed, during which Stewart revealed that in his rural constituency ‘quite a lot of us wear some tweed’. Only ‘some’ tweed, mind you: Stewart sensed he was on tricky ground here. Leadership candidates in all parties get used to being asked if they’ve ever smoked weed — but worn tweed? How often? Just to be sociable? Experimenting? Tried it a couple of times but that was at university? Stewart sounded unsure whether he was being invited to confess a vice or parade a virtue.

But as both men knew, tweed was a surrogate for an issue unrelated to menswear. You could equally have brought brogue shoes, double-breasted suits or red corduroy trousers into the conversation as potential skeletons in a Tory’s cupboard, indicators of more deep-seated tendencies. Or — and now we’re getting warmer — wind turbines, gay marriage, HS2, political correctness, split infinitives, feminism, trans-rights…

…Or Brexit. I have a serious question to put, and for once (most Spectator readers will be relieved to hear) it isn’t about whether we should or shouldn’t leave the European Union. I’ll half duck that this week. As charming respondents in our online readers’ comments section like to remind any columnist who dares ask whether Brexit is actually a good idea: ‘We’re leaving. End of’, ‘Which part of the word “Leave” don’t you understand?’, ‘We’re out. Get over it’, ‘Suck it up’, etc. So — again, for once, and for the sake of argument — I’ll take Brexit as a given.