THERE’S nothing worse than a bad hair day … except being caught having a bad hair day.

So it was some zeal that the media shared news of Tony “long hair” Blair and his lank locks.

The former Labour Prime Minister appeared on ITN News last week sporting a grey mullet to much consternation. (Are we really so bored we have nothing else to talk about?)

Perhaps this is his preferred new look. Or maybe he received misinformation regarding the whereabouts and proliferation of barbers open after Covid restrictions were eased.

He told the Evening Standard he had not had such long hair since his student days in a rock band known as the Ugly Rumours.

It’s not certain how the group got its name.

The media furore over Blair’s hair is odd, given the lack of grooming opportunities due to Covid restrictions.

As a nation, it’s true to say we’ve been putting the locks into lockdown.

It didn’t take me long to remember why I have spent a lifetime with short hair, so paltry and thin are my scraggy tresses once they venture past my lugs.

In the depths of long-haired lockdown, I began to envy my follicly challenged other half as he gave his head a wee shine with a chamoise and went about his business without a care – or hair – in the world.

Once long-locked and glam as a teenager in the 1970s, he admitted defeat with his crowning glory as a relative youngster and started shaving his napper long before it was de rigueur.

Some might say he was a head of the game.

In defence of his naked dome, he observes that you can’t grow grass in a busy street.

The actor Bruce Willis once observed that balding was God’s way of showing you you’re only human – he takes the hair off your head and puts it in your ears.

As a society, we are quite hung up on hair as a subconscious barometer to judging folk by their appearances and, in particular, measuring age.

I knew I was getting on a bit when a hairdresser asked if I’d thought of “colour” or if I was happy to stick with my “natural highlights”. I’ll go grey disgracefully, thank you very much.

I have not returned to that particular salon with my silver pound.

Rachael Gibson, founder of the Hair Historian Instagram, thinks that this past year of Covid has helped to revolutionise our grooming habits.

“Lockdown has been a real turning point in terms of lots of hair trends, be it growing out your grey, embracing your natural texture or, for lots of men, keeping your hair longer,” she says.

“This trend was formed out of necessity with the barbers being closed but I think a lot of men have now worked through the awkward growing-out stage and are really enjoying having slightly longer hair. It feels quite fresh after years of shaved heads and super short cuts.”

Instagram has spoken, so it’s official: it’s OK to go with the flow in the quest for success on a pate.