Harry Patch said, ‘ Give your leaders each a gun and let them fight it out themselves.’ But, we currently find our world leaders fighting it out on the front pages over who can impress most with their physical prowess.
After President Sarkozy over-exerted himself jogging around Versailles in an NYPD t-shirt and Barack Obama showed us he can’t throw a baseball, we are heartened this week by the official holiday snaps of Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin. Proving that he’s no lily-livered lightweight and can hunt, shoot, fish and swim butterfly like a real action hero – a leader of men who can look after himself and the rest of his country! This back-to-nature, action man- style proves hugely popular in Russia, it’s just a little hard for the rest of the world to fathom. Scary macho stuff – but at least he wasn’t wearing Speedos.
And, he may not have Obama’s natural sense of style but personally we don’t have a problem with Gordon Brown kicking back in a navy blazer and chinos. This type of classic menswear may not set the fashion pages alight but it works well on men of a certain age (and physique), and as we all know, try-hard is never a good look. So what if Brown looks a bit fuddy-duddy - we like to take our political leaders seriously.
Coming soon: the Cameron family go mad in Cornwall (before jetting off on a less well publicised long-haul trip), and Silvio Berlusconi takes a break in Ibiza with business woman, Katie Price.
Watch the video of Putin swimming in a cold Siberian lake.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1204250/Vladimir-Putin-takes-dip-climbs-tree-makes-basics-Siberia-vacation.html