I don't know what it is about sandals, but they seem to have stood for many commentators as emblems of all that is effete, pretentious and, ultimately and by extension, corrupt in those who choose to wear them. George Orwell, in his The Road to Wigan Pier, launched perhaps not the first but certainly one of the most resounding sallies against sandals and their wearers.
Discussing the perception of socialism in England in his day, he suggests, 'It would help enormously, for instance, if the smell of crankishness which still clings to the socialist movement could be dispelled. If only the sandals and the pistachio-coloured shirts could be put in a pile and burnt, and every vegetarian, teetotaller, and creeping Jesus sent home to Welwyn Garden City to do his yoga exercises quietly!'
Warming to the task elsewhere in the book, he laments that socialism seems to attract 'with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist and feminist in England'. He goes on to include 'vegetarians with wilting beards', and 'that dreary tribe of high-minded women, sandal-wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who come flocking towards the smell of 'progress' like bluebottles to a dead cat'.
Sandals seem to have fallen into some desuetude after Orwell's vigorous assaults, though assiduous research reveals a thin line of reference over the years keeping them at least on the periphery of political discussion.
On 8 April 2010, writing in the Homeland Security Watch, Christopher Bellavita reported on the gradual development of rumour and misunderstanding surrounding a Qatari diplomat, Mohammed Al-Madadi.
Madadi was caught apparently attempting to ignite an explosive in his shoe on a United Airlines Flight to Denver. Further investigation revealed that he was covertly extinguishing a forbidden cigarette by placing it under his shoe, which, as it turned out, was not a shoe but — you've guessed it — a sandal.
Christopher Bellavita couldn't help himself: 'First reports about a 20-something, nicotine-addicted, sandal-wearing, low-level diplomat', he headlined, adding 'are usually wrong'.
As the central ingredient in antipodean vituperation, sandals have a healthy record. Reporting on the Finkelstein media inquiry, the Daily Telegraph's Miranda Devine referred to 'sandal-wearing freelance journalist and prolific tweeter Margaret Simons'. Simons riposted, in a piece entitled 'Sandalgate: and the most gratuitous media reference is ...', by auctioning the offending sandals then conceding to the wishes of the successful bidder by establishing an award 'for most gratuitous reference