McQueen is king of cool

What does Tony Blair have in common with a shop selling sexy underwear? An art gallery founded in the Victorian era with MTV? Or Dame Judi Dench with a bottle of Red Stripe beer?

They are all cool, apparently, sharing that indefinable quality that unites Scrabble, Lambretta scooters, VW Beetles, Converse sneakers and Wagamama's noodle soup.

A new book, Cool BrandLeaders, attempts to list Britain's coolest brands - and pin down that elusive quality once and for all.

As advertising man Robert Campbell puts it in the introduction: "It's instinct, inspiration, fearlessness, not being scared to be different."

Or, as Butthead put it (or was it Beavis?): "I like stuff that's cool. I don't like stuff that sucks."

This year the panel - which included menswear designer Ozwald Boateng, Mark Rodol of the Ministry of Sound, Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman and Dazed & Confused photographer Rankin - decided the top five coolest brands were Alexander McQueen, Bang & Olufsen, Agent Provocateur, the Tate Gallery and Ducati - the same five as last year, even though the judging panel has changed.

Of the top five, the Tate was founded in 1897, while Ducati motorcycles have - along with Bang & Olufsen hi-fi - been cool since the Seventies.

For people, however, it is a lot harder to stay cool. David Beckham tops the list of cool celebrities - but he is also second in the list of uncool celebrities. The same goes for Victoria Beckham: she's third in the cool list, but fourth in the uncool list as well.

In contrast, Kylie Minogue and Justin Timberlake are simply cool. The big surprise is that despite the misgivings about Iraq - and the online survey was conducted in July, among a sample of 18-30-yearolds - Tony Blair is voted the coolest politician. Stephen Cheliotis of the Brand Council said: "That is a strange one. Out of the few politicians that people of that age group have heard of, he clearly came top."