Sent home to change

I remember Peter Millar arriving for his first day (as a trainee) in London Bureau. He was wearing jeans, some sort of flak jacket, and a scruffy teeshirt. Bureau Chief John Organ sent him home to change. “This is a reporting bureau, dear boy, we might need to send you to a press conference in Downing Street” (or words to that effect). John was right, of course, and to be honest George Short, who must have known Peter’s style by then, should have warned him. Forty years on, the corridors of Whitehall and the boardrooms of the City have only just (sometimes) given up on ties. ■