Former prime minister David Cameron once said that his favourite piece of film ever is “the last 10 minutes of Shrek 2”. His successor Theresa May said her ultimate viewing experience over the Christmas period is Holiday Inn, a 1940s Bing Crosby vehicle where the actor performs in blackface. She also likes the music of her church and 12th-century Latin hymns, unsurprisingly.

Does the personal tastes of politicians matter? Of course not, it would be a red flag if our politicians were more interested in flipping through records and attending Akira Kurosawa retrospectives than in attending to the people they were elected to represent.

But there’s certainly plenty to glean from what taste they do present to the public. The personal tastes of a politician can be a facet of their political and public profile. Former Tory frontbencher Therese Coffey clumsily forgot to turn her alarm off while live on LBC, with the cool plinking piano of Dr. Dre’s Still D.R.E. sputtering from her tinny phone speaker. A mistake, surely?

Mistake or PR stunt, host Nick Ferrari was impressed. “It’s Dr. Dre is it? Fantastic. Dr. Coffey with Dr. Dre as health secretary it just gets better and better doesn’t it?”. Calm down, Nick. Perhaps if her alarm were some haunted 1990s Memphis rap track then that reaction might be called for.

Don’t let taxpayer-funded........

© Herald Scotland