Mane of the mantle

Author Salman Rushdi e said this week that he was stepping down as president of the PEN World Voices Festival. He said the organization “shouldn’t have a chairman for life. There’s something a little North Korean about that. I would have to start telling everyone to have the same haircut as me.”

A vision of the deceptively baby-faced North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, popped in our heads. The state anointed Great Leader “born of heaven” has a trademark hairstyle — parted in the middle and shaved over the ears - and it is rumoured that men in North Korea have been ordered to have the same cut.

Here’s looking at some prominent politicians and what their hairstyles say about them.

Barack Obama

The no-nonsense close crop suggests POTUS has his priorities right. With the demands of his job and two teenage daughters at home, there are enough hairy situations to deal with

Kim Jong Un

Baby Dictator is way out of touch with fashion. It looks as if the sides of his head were bikini waxed. Should get some style tips from his friend Dennis Rodman (who is already panting at the mention of bikini wax)

Junichiro Koizumi

The wavy grey hair of the popular former Japanese PM made him that rare Asian leader without a forbidding air about him. It hinted at a man who did not take himself too seriously

APJ Kalam India had one leader who stuck resolutely to a blue turban. Kalam, on the other hand, let his hair down, and perhaps inspired Tere Naam

Enrique Pena Nieto

Looks rather Nieto, no question. Haircut suggests he is a man who likes to keep it classic