Let us play political Tinder. This is a version of the dating app that invites users look at someone’s photo on a smartphone and swipe left for no and right for yes. In those instructions lies a clue to the essence of this game. An American academic, after examining two large surveys tracking attractiveness and comparing the results with voting intention, has concluded that, very crudely, lefties are ugly and conservatives less so.
Rolfe Peterson, of Susquehanna University, theorises that the reason is that attractive people have easier lives from the moment they are born, and therefore less reason to rebel. Science is science and data is not the plural of anecdote. Even so these findings seem open to challenge. For example, people tend to become more conservative as they get older. Do they become more attractive in the process?
Applying Professor Peterson’s hypothesis to history yields mixed results. Trotsky had the countenance of an angry weasel and chose to upend the status quo, but so did Aneurin Bevan, and he looked like a newsreader from central casting. Palmerston and Disraeli were great conservatives without being matinee idols, while a generation of young radicals swooned to the dark, whiskery looks of Cuba’s Che and young Fidel. We should consider political figures closer to the present too. It seems safer to stick with men since women in politics have enough on their plate already. Who’s more handsome, Tom Watson or Tom Tugendhat? Dan Jarvis or Johnny Mercer? Tristram Hunt or Crispin Blunt? Nicolas Sarkozy or Emmanuel Macron? A score draw, surely.
Now try it on your friends. Is Ben Brexit more attractive than Rod Remain? According to our market research, Times readers would, by Professor Peterson’s lights, be no more than moderately attractive. That can’t be right.