Dodgy Arfur Daley did for blazers

ALAN WHICKER may be the last Briton to have worn a silver-buttoned blazer with complete confidence. The demise of the veteran TV presenter in 2013 tolled the death knell for this most self-confidently middle-class of garments.

Like the periwig and the bowler hat, the plus-four and the bow tie, the blazer is on the way out; those who persist in wearing it do so with a smattering of selfconsciousness, a touch of obstinacy, even a pinch of camp. It is as though they are determined to stand up for a tradition that they know, in their heart of hearts, has already had its day.

In its heyday, the blazer came to symbolise a kind of conventional decency.

Yacht club commodores and school bursars wore blazers. People who played bowls wore blazers. And because they wore blazers, you felt you could trust them. A man in a blazer wouldn’t pilfer your wallet or run off with your wife.

The Major in Fawlty Towers was, I think, the consummate blazer-wearer: a little dim, perhaps even a little dull, but the salt of the earth. For this very reason, the blazer was doomed to be targeted by all sorts of ne’er-do-wells, and fast became the preferred uniform of the confidence trickster.

Before long, every bogus Major striding along the seaside promenade at Bournemouth in pursuit of a gullible spinster would be sure to sport a blazer with shiny brass buttons. This meant there came a time when all the fishiest people in public life were wearing them. From Lord Mountbatten of Burma to Arthur Daley, from Hughie Green to the Duke of Windsor, anyone who was the slightest bit dodgy would be sure to hang a selection of well-pressed blazers in his wardrobe.

It’s no coincidence that Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare always makes a point of looking strangers straight in the eye and shaking them firmly by the hand. He is also an inveterate blazer-wearer. Nowadays, whenever I encounter someone in a blazer, I start counting the spoons.