It is the oldest trap in the book: the pursuit of quality is recast as an act of hypocrisy. Step into a decent restaurant, buy a well-made suit, take a moment to care about how you present yourself, and someone will be there, waiting, to call you out. So it has proved for Andy Burnham. The Prime Minister's Manchester-made jackets have been subjected to the kind of scrutiny that would make most men reach for the nearest off-the-peg substitute and be done with it.
Here, in the unwelcome glare of the tabloid headlights, James Eden's case is hard to argue with. The Private White VC factory is a 173-year-old mill in Salford, overlooking the River Irwell, where every piece of the brand's clothing is designed, cut and stitched together. It employs about 100 people, 90% of whom work in that mill, while the remaining 10% come from small independent suppliers, including cashmere from Scotland. The building has been standing since before the brand itself was founded. That came later, in 2007, when Eden took his great-grandfather's name and his legacy and built something new from it.
That great-grandfather was Private Jack White, who earned the Victoria Cross in 1917. His original company focused on raincoats; Eden's label now includes ready-to-wear alongside bespoke tailoring. The name is a reminder that this is not some faceless conglomerate. It is a family business, with roots buried deep in the industrial soil of the north-west.
The prices, yes, are not cheap. Burnham's waterproof Harrington jacket costs £695; his "marine" jeans £295; a zipped polo shirt £195. But Eden does not shy away from those numbers. In fact, as one of the last survivors of Britain's once-thriving manufacturing industry, he is keen to talk about them. He has argued that his products are not expensive, but rather world-class, made without compromise and with the best weavers and finishers in the business.
On average, he pays his workers £20 per hour, "not the €2 you'd get in a factory in eastern Europe or 20 pence in the far east". His longest-serving employee has been with the family's companies for nearly 60 years. The person who maintains the mill's boiler started as an apprentice in the 1980s; the customer service team all live locally; every photographer, stylist and makeup artist for its shoots is Manchester-based.
This is not marketing. It is maths.
On LinkedIn, Eden tackled the criticism head-on, posting a copy of the Daily Mail front page and breaking down exactly where the money goes. He pointed out how easily the real story can be lost, noting that Private White VC does not set out to make expensive clothing, but rather exceptional clothing, without compromise. He wrote about the hundreds of decisions that go into every garment, and how people do not buy his clothing because it is expensive, but rather because it is made properly. When someone chooses to wear one of his garments, he added, they are not simply buying a coat. They are supporting skilled craftspeople, preserving traditional British manufacturing and investing in clothing designed to last for decades.
The wider fashion industry has been in freefall. According to the British Retail Consortium, more than 400,000 retail jobs have been lost since 2016, while several British brands have closed or been sold off. Against that backdrop, Eden's factory feels less like a business and more like an act of defiance. And here is Burnham, the self-styled man of the people, wearing its clothes. Good. We cannot help but wonder why a British Prime Minister wearing British clothes should be a story at all.
During the pandemic, his factory was awarded a PPE contract. He hired dozens of extra staff to make millions of medical-grade gowns and face masks. He has since repurposed the specialist equipment to make jersey collections, retaining many of those extra workers. It is a rare story of a manufacturer not just surviving, but adapting. That is precisely the kind of story we should be celebrating, not scrutinising.
There is something quietly thrilling about a Prime Minister who takes pride in his appearance. For too long, British politicians have treated style as an afterthought, a distraction from the serious business of governance. The grey suit has been the uniform of choice, and with it has come a certain greyness of spirit. Burnham, in his Private White VC jacket, is making a different statement. He is saying that how you present yourself matters. That quality matters. That the people who make our clothes matter.
Eden has described himself as "apolitical", stressing that he will support anyone who advocates for British-made products and local businesses. His customer list includes David Beckham, Tom Hardy, and Cillian Murphy amongst others. Not one of them has ever received a freebie.
That story, in the end, is not really about Andy Burnham. It is about a factory that refused to close, a family that refused to compromise, and a city that still knows how to make things. The Prime Minister wearing a Private White VC jacket is not a betrayal of his working-class roots. It is a reminder that the north of England can still produce world-class goods, if only we choose to value them. It is a reminder that style and substance are not mutually exclusive. And it is a reminder that sometimes, the most radical thing a politician can do is care about how they look.
Writing on LinkedIn, Eden summed it up rather well: "There should be no cynicism or criticism about a British PM promoting British goods. There's nothing to debate. He is the premier spokesperson of British trade and industry. Of course he should be wearing British-made stuff."
Hard to argue with that. And in the pages of Matter of Taste, we are not arguing. We are applauding.
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