Trump's decomposing ear of corn': what does hair certainty' tell us about our leaders?

"The idea of hair certainty was coined by the writer Simon Doonan. Writing in the buildup to the 2016 presidential election that would see Donald Trump first take office, he explained: Presidential hair = hair with certainty Hair-certainty describes hair that is what it appears to be. No illusions. No Greco-Roman fakery. Presidential hair can be thick or thin. Presidential hair can be messy. Presidential hair can be sparse, naff, and filled with dandruff. But, whatever it is, it just needs to have that certainty."

"Speaking now, he explains: I put him in the category of not going to get elected', because his hair is a bit of an enigma; overly complex and requiring salon maintenance. Subsequently, Doonan realised where his hair certainty lies. It's in the idiom of the 50s pompadour. It's Elvis. It's Johnny Hallyday. It is, he says, attention seeking a showbiz kind of do. I thought, Oh, that'll never fly in Washington'. But then, bingo, it did."

Labour faces an image problem with voters perceiving the party as dishonest, self-interested, and indistinguishable from others, leaving it ten points behind Reform in polls. The concept of hair certainty describes hair that is what it appears to be, with no illusions or fakery, and needing to convey certainty whether thick, thin, messy or sparse. Trump's coiffure was initially dismissed as overly complex and salon-dependent but was later identified with a 1950s pompadour, an attention-seeking, showbiz style that proved effective. Keir Starmer's hair is described as unnoteworthy. A recent joint press conference exposed the visual contrast of their coifs. A YouGov poll found voters view the party as dishonest, self-interested, and similar to other parties, leaving Labour ten points behind Reform.

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