While the formal dress-code of the House of Commons is minimal, how an MP dresses has often been important in shaping political careers. Dr Emmeline Ledgerwood has delved into the oral history archive to explore how various politicians in the twentieth century approached the issue of fashion, both in Parliament and on the campaign trail.
When Louise Haigh, MP for Sheffield Heeley was appointed First Secretary of State by the new Prime Minister on 20 July 2026, she became the first woman to serve in this role since Barbara Castle held the position in 1968-1970 under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. During Andy Burnham’s holiday in early August, Haigh acted as the de facto deputy prime minister in his absence, yet for the media it was seen as an opportunity to comment on what she was wearing during her working day.
Many of the women interviewed for the History of Parliament’s oral history project have spoken about how their appearance and choice of clothes were also the subject of media attention rather than their work as MPs. As Coghlan and Hackett asked in a 2023 article, ‘Why are female politicians’ clothes so scrutinised and framed as reflective of their abilities or character?’
Media reports such as these show that the clothes that politicians wear matter, yet there is minimal guidance as to what MPs should wear in the House of Commons. It is the Speaker of the House of Commons who is responsible for enforcing standards of dress, which take up only a few paragraphs in Erskine May, “the authoritative guide to parliamentary procedure”:
- Members should dress in business-like attire; this need not include a tie.
- A Member has been allowed to continue speaking on condition that clothing with inappropriate visual content is covered (such as the T-shirt worn by Caroline Lucas in 2013).
- Members are not permitted to wear decorations in the House. The wearing of military insignia or uniform inside the Chamber is not in accordance with the long-established custom of the House.
- More relaxed standards of dress are accepted for Members simply going through the division lobbies in order to vote.
The only parliamentarians that adhere to a formal dress code are the four members of the Speaker’s team. Sylvia Heal (Labour MP for Mid Staffordshire, 1990-1992; Halesowen and Rowley Regis, 1997-2010), described how she dressed for her role as Deputy Speaker in the House of Commons. “There’s something about putting on a different set of clothes, as crazy as it might seem … so I just wore a black suit and when I was going in to go into the Chamber, whatever I’d worn before, I would do the same as my male colleagues and change. There was something obviously psychological about it … and that helped tremendously.”
Heal’s interview is one of nearly three hundred in the History of Parliament’s oral history collection. These recordings offer unique insights into everyday aspects of former MPs political lives, including the ways in which sartorial choices helped an individual to fit in across the party spectrum or to increase their political visibility. In the case of John Sykes (Conservative MP for Scarborough 1992-97), this meant wearing a yellow tie in the hope that it would help to catch the Speaker’s attention during Question Time.
In his study of dress codes in the House of Commons in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Marcus Morris observed: “Clothing was recognised as an important form of political communication and culture, as well as a visual clue to the political identity of the wearer.” He writes about a certain style of dress in the late nineteenth century which symbolised moderation, prudence, respectability and authority, noting that the advent of the Labour politician kick-started an evolution in parliamentary sartorial style. Morris’ evaluation is borne out in this extract from an interview with Richard Body (Conservative MP for Billericay, 1955-1959; Holland and Boston 1966-1997; Boston and Skegness, 1997-2001) who entered the House in the mid-1950s.
Jim Prior (Conservative MP for Lowestoft/Waveney, 1959-1987) remembered arriving at Westminster as a newly elected MP: “I felt a bit of a fish out of water because I hadn’t even got a dark suit to wear. In those days … all the old boys were wearing striped trousers and black coats and things. […] There was more colour on the Labour side and more sort of tweed jackets and grey flannels and so on. I only had a light suit; I had to get a suit made fairly quickly.”
What emerges across the interviews is the impact that fashion choices could make during selection processes and on the campaign trail. The unwritten rules and norms of local activists or Central party representatives meant that candidates (usually women) or wives of male candidates were judged by local selection committees or members of the national party on their appearance. Whenever Edwina Currie (Conservative MP for South Derbyshire 1983-1997) was turned down by a Conservative Association selection committee, she would follow up with the local agent: “What I did each time is that I would phone the agent afterwards and say, ‘What did I do wrong?’ You never know how you are being perceived. I remember the agent for one saying, ‘You were too pretty! […] Go out and buy a black suit.’ So I did.”
Ann Taylor (Labour MP for Bolton West 1974-1983; Dewsbury 1987-2005) remembered: “The only time that anyone at national level said anything was when Bob Mellish [Labour Chief Whip] came to campaign for me in the 1974 election and took my father to one side and told him to tell me to wear longer skirts! […] This was the seventies for heavens’ sake, skirts were short, but he told my father to tell me which he duly did with a smile on his face.” Geoffrey Lawler (Conservative MP for Bradford North, 1983-1987) was judged by one selection committee on his wife’s appearance: “A lot of the old school, all their wives had done was spend all their time working with the local association doing coffee mornings, it was obvious that this young American girl wasn’t going to do any of that and so they marked me down a lot. […] I even got one, sounds ludicrous now, said, ‘Well your wife, she crossed her legs on the stage and her skirt should have been a bit longer.”
Fashion advice, good or bad, could come from within party ranks. Malcolm Savidge (Labour MP for Aberdeen North, 1997-2005) was given this assessment by Barbara Follett (Labour MP for Stevenage, 1997-2010), acknowledged to be the party’s fashion guru: “You’re a bit short, people like their MPs to look like authority figures, so wear very simple single-breasted suits, narrow ties with small patterns on them, try to get your hair … sort of fluffed up a bit.”
Elizabeth Shields (Liberal MP for Ryedale, 1986-1987) regretted listening to the recommendations of her local agent:
Phyllis Starkey (Labour MP for Milton Keynes SW 1997-2010) paid close attention to what she learnt during her key seat training in the run up to the 1997 election: “The lesson I took was to dress in a way that demonstrates you are serious, dress up not down, so suits not casual. Because it’s an important job … you shouldn’t distract them from what you are saying with zany clothes. Just sensible actually. Women have to work a lot harder at it as there isn’t a uniform for them as there is a uniform for men.” The fact that there wasn’t this uniform for women sometimes caused problems for Michael Morris (Conservative MP for Northampton South 1974-1997) as a Deputy Speaker: “The whole secret of the Speaker is to know everybody … after about two or three months I could immediately get the name. That’s quite a challenge. The real worst bit was after the summer break when, dare I mention, some of the female members had completely changed their hairstyle or indeed the colour of their hair and decided to move from the seat they normally sat in.”
The collection inevitably includes a reference to Margaret Thatcher’s handbag, taken from the interview with Sir Kenneth Baker (Conservative MP for Acton, 1968-1970; St Marylebone, 1970-1983; Mole Valley, 1968-1997):
Thatcher became an MP in 1959, one of only 25 to be elected that year, and when she stepped down as an MP in 1992 there were 60 women in the House of Commons. The sea change came in the 1997 election when Labour used all-women shortlists in half of all winnable seats, when a total of 120 women were elected. (Today we have 266 women MPs at Westminster.)
Interviewees offer plenty of comments relating to the arrival of more women in the House in 1997, such as this observation from Ann Cryer (Labour MP for Keighley, 1997-2010): “The actual appearance of the Chamber changed that summer. We had a nice and warm summer, so most of the women wear wearing summer dresses. Light colours, bright colours, and on the other side there was navy blue, grey, black suits, you know, the comparison was quite startling actually.” Giles Radice (Labour MP for Chester-le-Street, 1973-1983; North Durham, 1983-2001) referred to the amazing atmosphere in the lobbies during the first vote being like a cocktail party, with all the women MPs “dressed up to the nines”. There are also comments about the pushback women experienced when doorkeepers were unnecessarily strict in enforcing dress codes, such as telling Edwina Currie off when she arrived with bare legs and sandals. Joan Ruddock, elected 10 years earlier, made a point with several colleagues of coming into the Chamber wearing trousers.
Here Sylvia Heal comments on how the media reacted to the famous 1997 photograph of Blair surrounded by the Labour women MPs.
In her interview Gillian Merron (Labour MP for Lincoln, 1997-2010) spoke about how the training she received as a parliamentary candidate to pay attention to her choice of clothes and her appearance helped to give her a new sense of gravitas and the confidence to enter the parliamentary sphere. While this meant that she conformed to expectations within political circles of how to dress, once in the constituency her appearance made her stand out, as she reflects in this extract where she talks about the impact of this visibility on her personal life.
Our interviews show that there are expectations from within the party and from the media about what MPs should wear, yet for many women MPs, whatever their choices, their visibility has often led to unwarranted attention and censure about their appearance on the job. Parliamentarians interviewed for our oral history project, both men and women, were in no doubt that their wardrobe was an inherent element in the advancement or hindrance of their party political careers, yet for women, their visibility as elected representatives then attracted undue attention from the media and the public about what they wore to go about their day-to-day business. There are far more comments — from both male and female interviewees — about the way women were expected to dress than about men. We need more on what men think about dressing for a parliamentary career, such as this quote from Ian Wrigglesworth (Labour and Co-operative MP for Thornaby, 1974-1983; SDP MP for Stockton South, 1983-1987): “I remember the count … it’s rather a silly thing, got no relevance particularly at all, but that day I went out and bought a suit a Burton’s which we still have today and which is still on the pictures of me on the steps of Middlesborough town hall. I mean it was the most … if you saw me in it, which you wouldn’t because I couldn’t get into it today … but it was a brown double-breasted suit with white bone buttons and big lapels, bell bottom trousers and hipsters, it was the state-of-the-art fashion of the day, but the sight of me in it is quite remarkable!”
EL
Interviews referenced
C1503/0013, Kenneth Baker by Mike Greenwood.
C1503/0017, James Prior by Mike Greenwood.
C1503/0020, Geoffrey Lawler by Alexander Lock.
C1503/0031, Richard Body by Mike Greenwood.
C1503/0074, Malcolm Savidge by Anne Gulland.
C1503/0092, John Sykes by Rachael Johnson.
C1503/0093, Ann Cryer by Henry Irving.
C1503/0152, Ian Wrigglesworth by Andrea Hertz.
C1503/0160, Giles Radice by Henry Irving.
C1503/0163, Edwina Currie by Henry Irving.
C1503/0172, Sylvia Heal by Alexander Lock.
C1503/0175, Elizabeth Shields by Henry Irving.
C1503/0186, Michael Morris by Peter Reilly.
C1503/0190, Gillian Merron by Mairead O’Hara Yiasoumi.
C1503/0232, Phyllis Starkey by Emmeline Ledgerwood.
Further reading
Jo Coghlan and Lisa J. Hackett, ‘Parliamentary Dress: Gendered Contestation of the Political Uniform’, M/C Journal, 26:1 (2023).
Marcus Morris, ‘Sartorial subversion and the House of Commons: political identities, meanings, and the responses to MPs’ dress, c. 1850–1914’, in Kevin Morrison (ed.), Political and Sartorial Styles: Britain and its Colonies in the Long Nineteenth Century (Manchester, 2023), pp. 151-170.
