Bluffer’s guides calling! We’re back, guiding you through the world of dating. This week we’re helping Lovestruckers who’ve found themselves dating a Tory. Now, we know they say 
never to talk politics or religion on a date, but if you’re dating someone with different political persuasions to yourself even going for a coffee can be tricky. Here’s how to avoid unnecessary confrontation for as long as possible.
WAIT, WHY WOULD GETTING A COFFEE BE TRICKY?
Okay, maybe that was a slight exaggeration; grabbing a coffee is a mostly apolitical activity. Unless you happen to be going to Starbucks (who are notoriously lax at paying their taxes) and you happen to think that all Tories are guilty of pandering to big business at the expense of the people who don’t own multiple homes full of Egyptian cotton sheets (800 thread count naturally). Then it might be tricky.
WE’VE MANGAED TO BUY A COFFEE WITHOUT ARGUING. WHAT ARE THE SAFE TOPICS OF CONVERSATION?
Nick Clegg makes for a useful scapegoat. So does former loveable Vince Cable. Their opportunistic status means that if you and the date are at opposite ends of the political spectrum you can probably find a bad word to say about them. This phenomenon is known as negative cohesion; it’s like bonding over crummy weather or the price of bulgur wheat. Admitting how much you like Waitrose will also go down well (once you’ve succumbed to a secret love of expensive fruit and bulgur wheat there’s no going back).
AND THE SLIGHTLY LESS SAFE ONES?
Although a contentious Conservative policy, the bedroom tax will never lead to a full-blown bust up about the pros and cons of welfare benefits because the conversation-come-argument can always be diffused with a risqué joke about taxes in bedrooms. (NB. the bedroom tax cuts benefits for families seen to have a spare bedroom knocking about 
their house. Pile them high…) For this reason, Boris Johnson is also semi-safe territory because any conversation where he is referenced can be brought swiftly back from the brink of an argument by remarking on his remarkably stupid hair. Saved by the windswept blonde barnet, as they say.
OKAY, WHAT CAN’T I MENTION UNLESS I’M LOOKING FOR AN ARGUMENT?
Plebgate. Or plebs or gates. And more specifically, you can’t say ‘Andrew Mitchell’. The Rugby and Cambridge educated Mitchell is the former party poster boy who has won widespread sympathy after being fitted up by the Old Bill, and hung out to dry by his own party. But along with the likes of William Hague, Michael Howard and Maggie Thatcher, Mitchell epitomises Harry Enfield’s scathing caricature of a Conservative. Any mention of these stereotypical Tory boys and girls will have your date convinced that you are A) guilty of tarring all Tories with the same brush and B) actually dating them in an attempt to take down the Conservative party from the inside. Trust us, it’ll take more than a one-off bedroom tax to clear your name (sorry…).
MAXIMUM BLUFFING VALUE
Winston Churchill (the famous Tory and wartime prime minister of 1940-45) actually defected from the Conservatives in 1904 due to disillusionment with their party politics and didn’t officially re-join the right until 1925. He is often quoted as saying: ‘Show me a young Conservative and I’ll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I’ll show you someone with no brains.’ Dating someone without a heart might prove difficult, so fingers crossed your Tory in question isn’t a twenty-something.
DO SAY ‘I’ve never been that dogmatic when it comes to politics.’
DON’T ASK ‘So you went from Eton to Oxbridge to the Young Conservatives, right?’
