SOPHIA MONEY- COUTTS MODERN MANNERS Fancy that… a dress code for students

No Tory costumes allowed, but if you want to come dressed as a murdering despot from Ancient Rome, that’s fine and dandy

Outrage in Kent this week. The students’ union there has told university partygoers they cannot dress up like Tories for Hallowe’en. No Boris Johnson masks, no Michael Gove lips, no double-breasted pinstriped suits. They would all fall foul under new rules issued by the Kent Union, which stipulates that “fancy dress themes should not be centred around political group stereotypes or the stereotypes of different levels of perceived class in the means to diminish their worth or validity”. It’s a bit wordy, isn’t it? But that’s students for you. Too much Rousseau, perhaps.

Apparently the union’s issue with political stereotypes is that they could create “an unsafe and exclusive campus”. The list of banned costumes also includes Mexican sombreros, “cowboys and Native Americans”, priests and nuns, and Harvey Weinstein. Generously, the union has suggested alternative options for those who were counting on being able to dress up like Jacob Rees-mogg. Acceptable costumes include aliens, cave people, Ancient Greeks, Romans, doctors and nurses. On balance, I think the mother-murdering pervert Emperor Nero was probably a less upstanding chap than Philip Hammond, but each to their own.

A petition has since been launched (of course it has) by students who are angry about these new rules. At the time of writing, it had clocked up 315 signatures. I especially like one of the comments under the petition which reads: “Why can’t I be Pocahontas if I want to? She was my fave.”

It’s absurd, this new rule, for several reasons. Unquestionably, dressing up as a Nazi (ahem, Prince Harry) or blacking-up is moronic. If you are dim enough to do that, then it’s astonishing you’ve survived as far as university. I am reminded of the Bertie Woosteresque headline from 2015: “Blacked-up aristocrat crashes into lamppost while three times over drink-drive limit.” Well, quite. Poor old lamppost.

But, certain exceptions aside, university is a time to do quite silly things. At my university, the rugby club used to kick off their Christmas party by each swallowing a pint of beer that had been blended in a juicer with a full English breakfast. Idiots. At Bristol, I know someone who had to undergo a deeply unpleasant initiation rite into a sports club by playing a game called “Find the banana.” Grim. Even Kate Middleton once dressed up like an adult baby (complete with bib) while at St Andrews and took part in a giant shaving foam fight. For those who want to indulge in such peculiar habits and experiment, university is surely the best place for them.

And, really, who is going to take offence at anyone who pulls on a pair of leopard-print kitten heels and sashays into the union as the Prime Minister? I cannot honestly see how that would cause problems, and if it does, well, find something else to be angry about. There are plenty of topics to go around at the moment. I don’t think we need to waste extra emotional energy getting cross about someone appearing on Hallowe’en wearing a blonde wig, spouting Latin declensions and dressed in tatty running kit.

R