Papped on a sweaty jog like Kylie Jenner gone to seed was Michael Gove on Wednesday, crimson shorts failing to contain his ample curves, etc. But what’s most remarkable is his recently rumoured beard, now made public after fellow Brexit architect Nigel Farage aired his pornstache earlier in the week.
Gove’s beard betrays all the hallmarks of lazy, untended growth. There is at least a joining of ’tache and chin, but is starting to ramble down his neck towards his modest cleavage, and his cheeks appear relatively unsprouted – a classic pitfall for the prospective beardo.
First pictures of Michael Gove with his new beard/facial hair pictures by @alexlentati https://t.co/uyNbTvs4xu pic.twitter.com/GL2GKD59VP
— Elliot Wagland (@elliotwagland) August 17, 2016
Gove is also struck by another curse: that whatever the colour of your hair, your beard can emerge as ginger as Greg Rutherford marvelling at a New England fall. Growing one out of sheer laziness in 2003 while working as a pot washer in Sheffield, I too discovered that as my mousy brown hair receded, a brave new auburn identity was suddenly mine for the taking. Within days the chefs had named me “Ginger Bin Laden”. With Gove, meanwhile, his latent gingerness is a reminder that despite wanting his Euroscepticism to appear moderate and fiscally responsible, a irrationally raging Anglo-Saxon ancestry burns just beneath his facial epidermis.
Like me, his beard is surely the result of lazy grooming. The parliamentary summer recess isn’t just for boring yet politically sensible trips to Cornwall – it is when male political figures allow tension to dissipate so massively that it physically emerges from their faces as hair. Take Ed Miliband, who underscored his recalibrated political ambitions with a salt-and-pepper look last year, or Jeremy Paxman, who defanged himself with a twinkly looking pelt. But Gove could also be eyeing Stephen Crabb, perhaps with a paranoid desire to assume Crabb’s dynamic-seeming form, chin and all.
Many will point to this as being the moment when the beard went from on-trend to desperately uncool, establishment accessory, particularly as Gove’s wife, Sarah Vine, has celebrated it as “his new hipster look”. A number of Dalston craft beer shops spontaneously combusted soon afterwards. No matter – the chances of his beard lasting after his summer holiday are less than those of your average Corfu romance. The beard will then return to its rightful place in the political landscape: Jeremy Corbyn’s face, signifying nationalised railways and mung beans.
