DAVID Cameron's trendy green shoes have got me thinking about an old song called If Things Could Talk.

There is a line in this song, which was covered ages ago by the American musician Ry Cooder, which goes as follows: "Now if shoes could tell where you've been/When you say you've been visiting a friend."

Something about this whimsical notion appeals to me, and it is has pleasing mileage when considered in connection with politicians.

Just imagine what stories their shoes could tell, with a pair of well-worn Tory brogues squeaking up with tales of infidelity perhaps, or scuffed black M&S New Labour shoes heckling their owner about who was paid what to secure a seat in the House of Lords: "Now you may say that, but from where I was standing it didn't look like that at all"

Anyway, one aspect of my little fancy is quite wrong. Mr Dave doesn't wear brogues, which are far too old Tory (even though, as an old leftie type, I have a weathered pair of which I am very fond).

No, Mr Dave has taken to wearing green recycled shoes.

As with recycled toilet paper, the idea of recycled shoes takes a moment to settle comfortably in the mind. They are, you see, made from previously used materials, not smelly old shoes.

Mr Dave favours shoes made by Worn Again, which are promoted as "beautiful, sexy and guilt-free".

They cost £65, which seems quite a lot for something made of firemen's old trousers, among other used materials. But £6 from every pair is donated to helping Britain's homeless.

Is there any green bandwagon Mr Dave won't jump aboard, or indeed pop on his Old Etonian feet?

He has just refurbished his London home on environmental lines, with solar panels, water-recycling and the like.

I suppose we ought to be pleased about this, because once the only green thing about the Tories was the wellies they pulled on when thrashing about in the countryside.

But I can't help worrying about the showiness of all this greenery, along with wondering just how much it costs to convert your home in such a planet-saving manner. Perhaps you have to be rich to be so green.

Anyway, Mr Dave's green trainers might not have been telling their owner the truth, if a story in one of the Sunday newspapers was correct.

An enterprising reporter traced the shoes to the factory where they were made.

This is not, as you might suppose, somewhere green and pleasant, but a vast shoe factory in China, where the workers live in grim dormitories, and are so unhappy about their pay that some of them walked out of their jobs in February.

Perhaps Mr Dave's trainers are just another indication of how being green is never as straightforward as it seems.

They also allow us to admire the green alterations he made to his party.

I am particularly impressed by the policy recycling unit, which takes New Labour's policies, strips away the unpopular bits, and sends them out as shiny new ingredient-free Tory policies.

Mr Dave was setting out his stall again this week. As is usual, what he said was a little confusing if you stopped to think about it.

Most notable of all, Mr Dave said that a Conservative government will not do anything for its citizens.

Pardon me, I seem to have done a bit of accidental recycling myself. That "anything" should read "everything".

His thesis, if I grasped it properly, was that New Labour has treated people like children, and so they behave like children, refusing to take responsibility for their own lives.

Mr Dave believes that we are "infantilising people", and that if in power, the Conservatives would not "promise to solve every problem, respond to every incident, accident or report with a new initiative, regulation or law".

This just shows that Mr Dave is also recycling stern old Tory policies of the "don't expect any help from us" variety, and giving them a nice new coat of environmentally friendly paint.

Or so my shoes just told me.