THERE are fewer and fewer places you can go these days and feel entirely at home wearing a suit.
I once went into the notorious Leeds pub the Admiral Duncan as a bet and, the drinkers seeing me and a colleague wearing suits, cleared the bar thinking we were Special Branch.
When a bloke with no teeth and a Leeds United tattoo on his forehead approached me I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and did a runner.
Nowadays you can walk along any street in any town or city in the UK and definitely be the odd man out wearing a suit.
I was in London for a couple of days this week and even in the heart of Mayfair you don’t spot many men wearing suits.
‘Business casual’ is now a combination of chinos, knitwear, gilets and casual shoes.
Well, that’s business casual in London.
In Leeds it is dirty jeans, scuffed trainers and ill-fitting anoraks.
But there is a place where you can still wear a suit and feel at home and that is in the Houses of Parliament.
Perhaps I was imagining it, but my passage through the Cromwell Green entrance into the mother of parliaments definitely felt smoother because I was wearing a suit and tie.
Was that a respectful nod from a police officer and a welcoming smile from a lady at a desk or was it my imagination?
Who knows, but I felt all the better for dressing for the occasion.
And that occasion was lunch in the Strangers’ Dining Room in the House of Commons followed by drinks in Strangers’ Bar and on the terrace overlooking the River Thames.
Arranged by former Labour MP and Minister for Sport and Tourism, Gerry Sutcliffe, we were hosted by the Labour MP for Preston, Sir Mark Hendrick.
He told me he has been a member of Parliament for 24 years which puts him in the top 20 longest serving MPs in the House of Commons.
“What do Mark, me and Bill Clinton have in common?” Gerry asked me.
Given I quickly worked out that Monica Lewinsky has probably never made it to the Bradford South or Preston parliamentary constituencies, I said that I had no idea.
“Mark and I were both born in Hope Hospital, Salford and Bill Clinton was born in Hope, Arkansas,” said Gerry with a grin.
My parents’ had a lot of hope for me when I was born, so it shows things don’t always work out.
The eclectic group who were lunching with us included Peter Dodd, former commercial director at Welcome to Yorkshire, lawyer Richard Larking (he’s the one in sunglasses in the photo above, looking like my security detail), accountant David ‘Kenny Rogers’ Richmond and textile entrepreneur David Whitehead whose family-owned company is almost a century old and has Burberry as its biggest customer.
“The last time I was in this dining room there was a lady with her feet up on a chair, apparently because there were mice running around,” recalled Richard.
“Oh yes, there is a big problem with mice in this building,” Sir Mark told us.
Someone asked him if anyone had ever seen a rat in Parliament.
“Only on the opposition benches,” he said deadpan.
Lunch was superb, improved by both a House of Commons Bordeaux and an English white wine from the lush, sun dappled hills just outside Barrow-in-Furness.
I’d describe it as a lovely fresh blend of Burgundy and Sellafield.
The meal was further improved by a waiter who resembled Bert Kwouk describing me as the youngest person at the table.
To be fair I probably was, but it is never normally acknowledged because I have never looked young.
When I got the job as Yorkshire Post business editor aged 30 I probably looked 50 which gave me an element of gravitas which I really didn’t have.
I’ve been growing into my looks ever since.
To finally be described as young is a noteworthy achievement.
You can probably tell I’m not that familiar with noteworthy achievements.
After lunch we made our way to Strangers’ Bar where the barman of 35 years, Richard, remembered us from the last time we visited after a Barclays and CBI event a few years ago.
He introduced us to new barman Gervase who is probably the only person with that name who hails from Middlesbrough.
The only other people with that name that I’ve heard of are the author and former teacher Gervase Phinn and Gervais the Hairdresser, a character on the Steve Wright radio show.
We took our beers and sat out on the House of Commons terrace watching a cormorant diving into the murky depths of the River Thames and the sun glinting off the pods of the London Eye.
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IT has definitely been a political week as the day after visiting the House of Commons I met the former political editor of the Yorkshire Post, Simon McGee, for lunch.
I haven’t seen Simon for over 15 years but a few weeks ago he dropped me a message and asked if I would help him with a “corporate intelligence” project he was working on.
I Googled Simon to find out what he had been up to since I last saw him when he departed from the YP to join the Mail on Sunday.
He was at the Sunday Times before joining the civil service as press secretary and head of news at first the Department for Transport and then the Department for International Development before joining the Foreign & Commonwealth Office as press secretary to the Foreign Secretary for three years, two of which were working with Boris Johnson.
After a spell working as a senior advisor in a global business, Simon became director of communications at 10 Downing Street for new Prime Minister Liz Truss.
Yes I know.
But because he had joined as a civil servant rather than a special adviser to a politician (or Spad, as they are known), he lasted more than the seven weeks Liz did and remained working in the Cabinet Office for several months before leaving to run his own advisory business.
Over lunch at Soho House, Simon gave fellow communications guru Claire Holt and I a fascinating insight into politics of the recent past, present and near future.
If you are wondering what my contribution to the lunch was, I did some impressions of former colleagues at the Yorkshire Post, which Simon seemed to appreciate.
Although when he lowered his voice at one point I thought he was going to impart some incredible piece of gossip.
Instead, he warned me that as I was wearing a suit and tie there was a chance I could be asked to leave Soho House for being too professionally dressed.
The bloke in a baseball cap and hoodie at the next table looked more at home than me.
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“NOBODY goes out for lunch on a Friday any more,” I sagely advised Sir Gary Verity last week as we made our way to dine with accountant Tim Parr.
As we entered Da Vito restaurant on York Place in Leeds there were a few tables with diners including one with recently departed chief executive of Leeds City Council, Tom Riordan.
Now a senior civil servant, second permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care, Tom was lunching with someone I didn’t recognise.
That didn’t stop Gary, Tim and I going over to say hello to Tom who greeted us warmly and introduced me to his lunch companion, the Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines.
A Liverpudlian with a typically wry sense of humour, I had heard Nick before on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme as a Thought for the Day contributor.
“I’m doing Thought for the Day next week and then Pause for Thought on the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show on Radio 2,” Nick told me.
Because he was having lunch with Tom Riordan, I suggested perhaps his subject could be the traffic chaos in Leeds city centre.
Nick explained that his choice of subject had to be slightly more spiritual and philosophical than that.
Given the number of people who have turned to prayer while sitting in a car or a taxi on Whitehall Road attempting Leeds Station to catch a train, I’d say maybe not.
Have a great weekend.