No offence meant, Charlie!

LAST week, I wrote: ‘Charlie Flanagan is only 60 but has that image of a man in a grey suit. He too is in danger, if only to free up a place.’

The Minister for Foreign Affairs appeared unhappy with our analysis. We had a brief exchange on the plinth on Friday where he suggested that there wasn’t much point in talking to me as I thought he was too old. He then did a very good impression of an old, old man. He limped and contorted his body in a faux-grotesque gait.

But the phrase is not a reference to age at all.

‘Men in grey suits’ was coined by journalist Alan Watkins in a 1990 article for The Observer when writing about the fall of Margaret Thatcher.

She herself said that ‘grey men’ had come for her as ‘treachery with a smile on its face’. Willie Whitelaw, one of the Tory grandees who shafted Maggie, said it was inaccurate as ‘the typical Conservative grandee tends to wear a dark blue or black suit, with chalk- or pin-stripes, what may be called a White’s Club suit.’ Such is the depth of reference around here. Probably why we have attracted such a regular ministerial readership.