The London Telegraph (Abridged)

Having spent the past six years trying to shake off his Bullingdon Club past, David Cameron could be forgiven for never wanting to wear a tailcoat again.

So it is perhaps unsurprising that the Prime Minister has decided to break with tradition by shunning the morning suit when he attends the royal wedding next week.

By choosing to wear a lounge suit, an option which has been given to all of the invited guests, Mr Cameron will become the first prime minister in history to attend a royal wedding without wearing tails.

His decision is likely to be out of step with visiting heads of state and members of foreign royal families who will be sitting around him towards the front of Westminster Abbey, most of whom are expected to wear full morning dress or their country’s traditional robes.

Downing Street sources said Mr Cameron and Nick Clegg, his deputy, had decided to wear lounge suits, without giving reasons for their decision. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, is also thought to have opted for normal work attire.

However, Mr Cameron is known to be acutely sensitive to accusations by his political opponents that he is a “toff”.

Since becoming Tory party leader in 2005, he has gone to extraordinary lengths to distance himself from his youthful excesses as a member of Oxford University’s Bullingdon Club, which organised raucous, champagne-fuelled dinners.

A spokesman for St James’s Palace said: “The advice to all guests is that they should wear either a morning suit or a lounge suit and it is entirely up to them what they choose.”

The issue of prime ministerial morning dress did not arise during the wedding of the Prince of Wales in 1981 or the Duke of York in 1986, as Margaret Thatcher was in power at the time.