The UL is always full of colourful characters. Some of the best people watching in England is surely to be done in Cambridge University Library's hallowed tea room. From the old codger always seen riffling through the bins, to those gowned dons who insist on using the old catalogue system, the experience of a day at the UL is unique and endearing.

In the first week of a new era of Tory rule, we spoke to seven of the UL's best-dressed regulars about their outfits and voting preferences. 

1. Graham Patton

"My jumper isn’t a political statement against austerity, despite the colour. As it happens I’m still in my winter outfit. Tomorrow I’ll get into my summer wardrobe. I'll wear lighter coloured trousers and a shirt with no sleeves."

Voted: Labour.

2. Ian Donaldson 

 “I go to the gym every other day, I’ve got some good biceps here. I reckon I’d make a very good sports fitness model actually, though they say I’m too short to be a glamour model.”

His fleece is by Pierre Cardin. “It’s useful on windy days. Underneath I’ve got a nice bit of Slazenger on."

Would you describe your look as ‘sports luxe’?

"Yes. I would say I am a walking product placement."

Voted: Labour

3. Andrew Pickering

Voted: Labour.

So were you disappointed with the election result?

"Obviously. That’s not a very good question, is it now?"

You're right, sorry. Do take me through your outfit. "Not a lot of thinking went behind this outfit. I’m wearing a practical jacket that fulfils the same function as a ladies’ handbag. I’m wearing a lot of blue because, well, blue goes with blue, doesn’t it. But it has no correlation with my political affiliations."                                                           

4. Cliff

"My suit jacket is from a Savile Row tailor." Voted: Labour.

5. Professor Khinovski Rakiel, from the Polar Research Institute.

"I didn’t pay much attention to the elections here. I’ve got my own concerns about what’s going on in my own country – the US. We’ve got a lot of our own problems to do with race relations, the economy, and our treatment of the Native American people."

"Not much thought went into my outfit, except for this pin from Magadan, a city in the Russian far east near Alaska. It's famous for its gold mining."

"I taught in Magadan during the last two years of the Soviet Union. I suppose what I am wearing is in keeping with the typical style of the UL."

6. Paul Lunde

"I’m from the US so I didn’t vote. I am not actually an academic – just disguised as one. Though I used to be at Wolfson. I suppose I am wearing the compulsory corduroy blazer."

7. Nicholas 'you can Google me' Best 

"I voted tactically. I voted Ukip. I didn’t want to add to the Conservative vote. All you young undergraduates should come back and see yourselves in ten years. I was never a socialist. I didn’t want to be part of the herd.  I see all my contemporaries from university now: they used to be radical, now they're bald fat tories.

"Go to dinner at high table at King’s and you’ll hear people go on about keeping out the public schools, when they were themselves on full scholarships from Eton and so on. They themselves got a leg up from the system. They want to bring in 90% state school students at King’s but they couldn’t because the students simply aren’t good enough. Because they haven’t been educated. That is, apart from my daugher. She flew into Oxford from Hills Road with 5 A* at A-level, didn’t cost me a penny."

What do you think of that Churchill quote: if you aren’t liberal at twenty, you haven’t got a heart; if you aren’t Conservative at forty, you haven’t got a brain.

"It’s bollocks. People take comfort from that, but it’s rubbish. The fact is, people just grow up."

Tell me about your outfit.

"This jacket originates from the Kenyan (pronounced Keenyan, nice) settlers who used to go shooting in Kenya in Norfolk tweed but it was too warm. Then they just cut the sleeves off and that’s where this type of jacket originated. So there you go."

@isocockerell & @susanna762