Nadine Dorries' attack on Rishi Sunak’s expensive clothes raises some important questions for Liz Truss – Scotsman comment

According to Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, Rishi Sunak’s £450 Prada shoes and £3,500 bespoke suit and Liz Truss’s £4.50 earrings from Claire’s Accessories say something about the suitability of the two candidates to be the next Prime Minister. But what exactly?

Are Rishi Sunak's suits too expensive for a Prime Minister? (Picture: Carl Court/Getty Images)

Dorries didn’t actually spell it out in her post on Twitter. Perhaps she thought the reason was so obvious it did not need to be stated outright.

However the Daily Mail article she linked to offered a clue, claiming that Sunak’s Henry Herbert suit “didn't do much to dispel claims” that he is “out of touch with the ordinary Briton, especially during the cost of living crunch”.

So is it that the former Chancellor is too rich, with an estimated fortune of £730 million when his wealth is combined with his wife’s, to become the country’s next leader? Have he and his wife been too successful, and just how much is too much?

Or is it that wealthy politicians should not buy things they like and can afford? Should Sunak instead masquerade as one of the people, pretending he is just about scraping by like much of the population?

Is Dorries suggesting that Truss, who can presumably afford considerably more expensive earrings, simply prefers a more humble style? If so, it begs the question, what does she spend all her money on? Does she have no luxuries whatsoever?

We’d like to suggest that clothes, however fine or ragged, do not maketh the man or woman. Instead, it is their politics, their ideas and their integrity that really matter. So those £4.50 earrings may not have been quite the investment that Dorries, or Truss, supposed.