What we are seeing is just how far the Tories' liberalism goes
What's happening, man? I feel lately like I fell asleep and have woken up in the 60s. Not the swinging 60s when we all loosened up, but the part of the 60s that was really still the 50s: the Mad Men era that is only retrospectively sexy. Women knew their place, how to wear a girdle and fix a Martini. Well in some fantasy world. For many, life was dull and lacking the basic freedoms we take for granted.
We are all, of course, looking forward to this fantasy being reenacted as Hugh Hefner is opening a new Playboy club in London. Grown men like to be entertained by women dressed as rabbits. It's all very sophisticated! Funny really, given the invention of something nearly as important as hair-straighteners! Rampant Rabbits which could surely be incorporated into the Bunny costume?
Still, I must be careful what I say here, as Hefner in his dressing gown is such a role model and he once threatened to sue me for implying he was a pimp, which he isn't obviously, and that his girlfriends were prostitutes, which they aren't of course. I don't know what on earth could have possessed me to think such a thing. I see now that true sexual liberation and real love is having a Viagraed-up octogenarian lowered on to a teenage siliconed honey! Phew! Bunnies will still be required to stick to all the Bunny rules. And do the Bunny Dip. No bending over. It's all so much more upmarket than Hooters and it's not degrading like stripping, which is cheap, or burlesque, which is artistic, or lapdancing, which is empowering.
The Playboy/Mad Men vibe was on full show this week, weirdly enough, during Obama's visit. What was going on in the backyard of No 10? A barbecue, well obviously. David and Barack were serving meat. Burger and lambchops. A little bit country. A little bit rock'n'roll? They were doing a barbecue in shirts and ties, as you do. And I was worried that the servicemen they were serving had been through enough without salmonella. Was that meat cooked properly? But of course they hadn't cooked it and it was all some PR stunt, complete with bunting in the background. Bunting is very in; let us not forget the triumph of the royal wedding. One nation under some bunting from Poundland. Still, there were the guys doing the meat fest while the first ladies got "to man the salad bowls". And wear nice dresses. Does life get any better than doling out coleslaw?
If the body language between Cameron and Obama was stiff at times, it wasn't as stiff as between Sam and Michelle who we are told managed a bit of "a natter". Incredible! They then posed ridiculously together on a sofa. The president met the newlyweds. The Duchess of Cambridge was a symphony in beige. Or something. This sent everyone insane with excitement. Serious journalists appeared to tell us Americans like Kate because she has hair and teeth. Which, let's face it, is a pretty spectacular achievement. Michelle appeared in a variety of gowns and took some girls to Oxford and yes, is eight foot tall and totally amazing. But why Oxford? Still, the message that you can make it wherever you come from is not one that our prime minister's wife could go round making. The Obamas look like royalty all right.
But this tableau got to me because, despite Michelle, it summed up so much of what is currently on trend here: women as ornaments, men making decisions and those decisions being largely based on the idea that we must look back rather than forwards. For instance, all education policy, now critiqued even by establishment Oxford dons, isn't based on evidence but on the idea that things just used to be better in the past. Every school near me now is an academy that goes barmy on uniform. Not just a basic uniform but blazers trimmed with gold leaf or whatever it is. Why not make them wear top hats? This is a total throwback to another time. The idea that at Toby Young's free school kids learn Latin is part of this nostalgia. I have no problem with Latin. It is an excellent way of learning about grammar, history and our own language. It helps if you want to do science, but this is not the impetus here. Latin signifies a particular kind of pre-comprehensive education. It is, instead, part of a conservative mindset that at its most harmless is about women with waists in cardigans and kids in boaters, and at its worst is actually about eroding all the rights people fought for at the end of the 60s.
Do people realise how quickly this government is rolling back these rights? Employment law and benefit changes are now being designed to push women to stay at home and stay with men. Marriage is seen not only as morally superior but also as part of an economic strategy. Actually, marriage was always about economics but it was dressed in frills.
The proposed changes on abortion, unsupported by most of the country, are another part of the culture war. Every one is squeamish about late abortions until you tell people the case histories of the tiny numbers of women who have them. Disturbing beyond belief. A schizophrenic woman hit several times with an iron bar by her partner while pregnant may indeed have a late abortion. Most abortions are, of course, early and part of a fundamental right of women being able to control their own bodies.
One way to control them is to preach the message of abstinence to girls. This simply doesn't work but, like much Tory policy is being rapidly promoted, though it is based on faith rather than reason or evidence.
Make no mistake, the backlash is here. Some of it is to do with a boom in Tory confidence and a bust in the idea of any alternative thinking. The fiscal conservatism but social liberalism of the new Tories was said to be a winning combination. But what we are seeing is just how far their liberalism goes. Possibly as far as a gay public schoolboy. That's it.
The cupcake obsession, the clothes – all of it makes me realise I am living in the most conservative time I can remember. I couldn't care less about the sex lives of footballers but the current curtain-twitching over other peoples' affairs reveals ever more reactionary levels of prurience.
So it is now fitting we have women back in unthreatening frocks, baking away while abstinence and fidelity is being touted, if not adhered to. Just say no to affairs (even with Bunnies!), no to drugs, no to drink, no to pleasure, no to single mothers, no to women's rights, no to abortion, no to divorce, no to creativity, no to letting people think for themselves.
Sod it all! Have a drink, have unsuitable sex, wear something really horrible. The backlash against the backlash will not be beige.
It will be declared, hopefully, a fashion disaster. Bring back the 60s, the good bit, where "it all went wrong". In an era of compulsory bunting and horrible Puritanism be patriotic! Hedonism is what we do best. Now it's your moral duty.