Well, you've got to give the woman credit. Theresa May certainly knew how to make a statement at the Tory party conference on Monday. Oh, sure, she made a bit of a squawk about the party having been "slaughtered" at the polls; and yes, there was a stir when she made some vague reference to the party's unfortunate habit of attracting MPs who end up in prison, but these were not the attention-grabbing nuggets that really hogged yesterday's front pages. No, it was her shoes.
Those quite simply mind-bogglingly awful leopard-print high heels in which Ms May strode on to the platform and terrorised the ever-ageing party faithful. It was like watching the collective fantasy of all those Tory men in the audience: to be harangued by a scary, school-marmish woman with hints of kinky inclinations. Listen to me or I'll kick you with my pointed printed toes, you naughty, naughty boys!
But let us pause a moment and think. Imagine, if you can bear it, that you are the chairman of a party trying to scrape itself off the bottom of the boot of unpopularity and focus attention on the rather dull here and now. Unfortunately, aged dinosaurs from the past insist on resurrecting themselves at the most inopportune moments, rather like embarrassing relatives at Christmas lunch when you've invited all of your friends around ('Oh, Auntie Edwina, will you stop unbuttoning your blouse at the dinner table! And Uncle Jeffery, please stop pinching my best friend's bottom, thank you.')
So was Ms May pulling a Vorderman - the old trick of wearing an implausible item in order to create a new image and divert attention from a tiresome past? Will she turn up tomorrow in a gauzy Julien Macdonald slip? (Maybe that's more Edwina.) On balance, probably not. After all, a bit of animal pelt on one's feet is not the most effective method of replacing the party's seedy reputation with a vision of a sober future.
So what was our Theresa up to, then? Well, this may come as a bit of a shock, but perhaps the Tories have a normal woman in their midsts: perhaps Theresa May is just a shoeaholic. Let us examine the evidence: on Monday it was leopard-print pumps; on Sunday she was photographed wearing a rather improbable pair of pink-and-black kitten heels. Before that, well, who knows? The only person who ever studied assiduously a Tory lady's feet before was the late Alan Clarke, but, if memory serves, that was more of an appreciation of Lady Thatcher's ankles than a consideration of her fashion choices.
May's weakness for dodgy footwear has marked her out as the most human, most identifiable-with woman in the party. (Although, considering her competition is Ann Widdecombe, who is currently dieting on screen with the fat teenager from Pop Idol and, it was revealed by her secretary the other week, frequently "shouts at her salad", that wasn't too tricky.)
In one tabloid last week, Joan Collins counselled women that in order to be "really glamorous" they should just wear tan and black shoes and ditch the gimmicky ones. Now, this is why Joan is Joan and the rest of us, thank the Lord, aren't. We know that silly shoes are, well, silly, and won't go with anything and make us all look like Minnie Mouse, and yet women do still buy them. Just yesterday, I saw a grown woman in what looked suspiciously like an Armani suit buying a pair of turquoise flats with butterfly appliqués on the toe - by choice.
It is as though women siphon off style weaknesses and questionable taste into the footwear compartment of their closets, away from the Joseph jackets and Nicole Farhi trousers. Hence Theresa in her sombre black suits paired with pink or pelt shoes. I, for example, have a notorious weakness for pink, round-toed shoes, a problem that has led to various unflattering comparisons with cartoon characters. I am not proud of this and, yes, I am considering counselling.
Occasionally, these urges will seep out into other areas of women's wardrobes. Posh ladies, for some reason, think it is "just relly blahdy good fun" to wear flower pots and fruitbowls on their heads at formal occasions. There was a spate, about two summers ago, when normally right-thinking women took to lacy pink vest tops outside. But, in the main, women relegate these perversions downwards to their feet.
Men have a similar problem with ties (hence the strange phenomenon of businessmen in stern suits with hot-air balloon-print neckwear), but women's shoes somehow garner more attention. How could we forget the columnist Suzanne Moore, whose fondness for so-called "fuck me shoes" were said to have revealed her lack of real feminist beliefs. In fact, to some of us, those pointy monstrosities revealed nothing more than Moore's impressively high threshold for pain.
Shoes are actually the one part of a woman's outfit that are entirely for the wearer's pleasure, as opposed to that of the man. The male gaze tends to work from the top downwards, rarely ever getting as far as the shoe. So women tend to treat shoes as their secret outlet for fantasy self-image. The rest of their outfit is usually intended for the approbation of the observer. But down there, squirreled away, hidden beneath their hem lines and trouser legs, is the secret treat they save for themselves, that they can look down and admire with a small smile in the middle of their working day. Thus, my unfortunate weakness towards pink shoes says as much about me as Teresa's footwear does about her. But what, precisely?
Well, certainly, her choice of shop is not smart - Russell and Bromley, one of the most overpriced shoe outlets on the high street. And her choice of leopard print is objectionable on every possible count of taste. It is outdated, a little bonkers, intrinsically associated with the late 70s and somehow redolent of very tacky and somewhat distasteful sex. In other words, it is the perfect pattern for the Tory party today.
But at least someone is having fun at the party conference.