The Daily Express’s woman problem

“While they have been looking after their white, middle-aged male employees, Auntie has been doing exactly the opposite with their female ones, booting them out the second they show a wrinkle,” she fumed. “Only top totty is good enough for the Beeb.

“Here’s a suggestion: instead of culling middle-aged female talent, why not promote it?”.

So it must have been a completely different Virginia Blackburn in the Daily Express this week who put her finger on why Labour has been finding it so difficult to navigate the bumpy transition to government – its leading female figures are simply not glamorous enough!

Blackburn contrasted the women at Keir Starmer’s top table with new first lady Melania Trump. “Whatever you think of her husband and his politics, on the night of the inauguration, we got a blast of glamour of the type the world’s been yearning for,” she fawned. “The last few years have been grim: so can Melania make America great again? You may think I am being shallow, but these things matter.”

Mrs Trump’s appearance, Blackburn moaned, contrasted with that in Britain’s governing party.

“Look closer to home and you can see why these things matter. About the only sighting we’ve had of Lady Starmer in months was when it emerged that she, like half the cabinet, had been happy to accept free clothes from a Labour donor,” she wrote.

“It’s been left to the charmless duo of Rachel from Accounts and Angela Rayner to provide the glamour quotient, something that they are almost as unqualified to do as act as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Deputy Prime Minister… Heaven help us all.

“What we need in the UK above all else is a little optimism and there is no better way of providing this than through style, elegance and the knowledge that those at the heart of power know where to shop.”

Perhaps the Daily Express should man up and promote women. Here’s a suggestion: instead of publicly attacking middle-aged female talent, why not promote it?