I do kind of think that it may be the influence of a retrogressive Mail/Sun-style contingent that sets you on the back-foot about fairly right-on but flamboyant characters. With very little basis, you're made to start off on the defensive the moment you show any sympathies with these dewds and dewdettes. It's a Right Wing form of damage limitation, to make sure potentially influential figures always remain firmly confined to the fringes, while the perception of genuinely powerful pezzonovantes is mostly of cool, aloof and nebulous neutrals, or lovable loonie lairds, leaving them free to hold sway as long as they see fit.
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