Can't you just leave the jacket at Number 10, Gordon?

As we all know, there is something quite irritating about Gordon Brown at the best (and worst) of times. He’s a Prime Minister in charge of a country at a time when the cost of living is soaring, house prices are falling and global relations are, to say the least, tepid.

Yet, last week, at a press call during his family holiday, Mr Brown took his level of irritation and ratified it to new levels. He wore a blazer.

Now, I’m not saying that Mr Brown should have posed for the press in his Speedos (that’s presuming he owns a pair), but anything a little less formal than a cream blazer, unbuttoned white shirt and blue chinos would have done. He wouldn’t have to look far for inspiration either.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

His predecessor, Tony Blair, spent many of his summer holidays in pair of jeans.











Mr Brown’s current rival, David Cameron, could probably have lent him some of his shorts.










Barack Obama, the American president elect who Mr Brown just loves to (secretly) loath, can unbutton his shirt without, gasp, having to hide his neck with the lapels of an M&S jacket.












And that’s just a few.

The reality is, of course, that a person’s wardrobe, and what clothes they choose to take from it, is dependent heavily on their current state of mind. And, as we have established, Mr Brown’s is not in a good place.

With his position becoming more and more untenable, we have to face the fact that Gordon is going to want to keep that jacket on. After all, it’s a symbolic image of a man in control. But, and this is a BIG but, when Mr Brown adopted that image best, he was standing in the shadows of a Prime Minister who, from every now and again, knew when it was time to let his neck breathe more easily.