It was all a bit peculiar. The opening day of London Fashion Week was terribly Tory-tastic. It wasn’t just the shoulder pads on the catwalk that flashed back to a time when Margaret Thatcher was in charge. It was also the sight of two celebrities in the front row garnering the attention of the snapping paparazzi: Joan Collins, the 70-something star of 1980s soap opera Dynasty and Conservative supporter, and Boris Johnson, the London mayor (those London fashion models don’t run themselves you know, someone needs to oversee the catwalk).

It felt like a scene from Alan Hollinghurst’s novel, The Line of Beauty, the novel which charted an era of Conservative grandees and dances with Mrs T at champagne and coke-fuelled parties.