Copyright dailymail
Fun fact: I was once a bridesmaid alongside Claudia Winkleman, at the wedding of a mutual friend. It was years ago, more than two decades now. I would have been in my late 20s, she around 25, and just starting out in her career. Even then she was impossibly fabulous, confident and funny, a proper laugh. Already she had that trademark wit about her, cleverly observant, never missing a trick (although her hair was still its natural brown instead of her trademark glossy black). And charisma, bags of the stuff. My friend had decided that for her very glamorous wedding in Tuscany she wanted her bridesmaids in soft, floaty rose-coloured chiffon dresses from Ghost (back then the height of chic). Claudia looked just the part in hers, petite and demure, all very Keira Knightley in Pride And Prejudice. My rather chunkier frame wasn’t quite so suited to the delicate capped sleeves and empire line cut. I looked a little bit like an undercooked sausage as I trotted alongside the bridal party to the pretty little white church in the searing heat. When the weather broke, and it rained, the hem of my dress became tinged with red Tuscan mud. I looked like I’d been dipped in brown sauce. Anyway, I haven’t seen her much since then (Claudia, not my friend), save for the occasional bumping into each other at social events – we don’t move in the same circles (not that I move in any sort of circle these days, unless you count the Circle Line). But I’ve watched her go from jobbing TV presenter to a superstar – some might even say national treasure – and it’s been great to witness. Honestly, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. Or a more hard-working, down-to-earth one. Even now the one thing everyone says about her is that she remains resolutely un-diva-like. And on the rare occasions when we do exchange a few pleasantries, she is always unfailingly self-deprecating. But the truth is that she is, in her own unique way, a bit of an icon, especially to 50-something women like me. I don’t mean in the way she dresses and her general appearance (the famous fringe etc), although those are also key. There aren’t, as far as I know, many other women who have managed to forge successful on-screen careers while basically styling themselves as Steven Tyler from Aerosmith if he had happened to fall into a vat of creosote. But somehow she makes it work. What’s most remarkable about her is that at an age when most women in showbusiness are starting to find themselves sidelined, Winkleman is at the top of her game. She is that rare thing in the world of entertainment: a woman who has built her brand and reputation not just on looks but on personality, hard work and dedication. If the rumours are true, having announced on Thursday (together with Tess Daly) that she is stepping back from Strictly after more than ten years on the show, Winkleman is now poised to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Terry Wogan, Michael Parkinson, Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton and front her own chat show for the BBC. When you stop to think about it, this is actually quite a coup. With the possible exception of Cilla Black, no woman has ever really been allowed access to that prime-time evening slot, and certainly not without a sugar-coating of light entertainment and sequins. Caroline Aherne managed it briefly in the mid-Nineties, as her alter-ego Mrs Merton, but that was under the guise of quite niche comedy, although she had some memorable moments, namely when she asked Debbie McGee: ‘So, what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?’ And while it’s of course true that we have several highly respected women occupying serious political slots – Laura Kuenssberg, Sophie Raworth, Victoria Derbyshire, Emily Maitlis – you can’t really imagine them handling someone like, say, a Brad Pitt or a Richard Osman. They don’t have that light-entertainment range that’s required to pull in the big ratings. That glitzy appointment-to-view sofa chat has traditionally been male territory. Women – Vanessa Feltz, Lorraine Kelly, Trisha Goddard in her day – always seem to be relegated to less serious daytime slots, with a frothier, more magazine feel, as though they can’t be trusted with the serious business of prime-time. Winkleman is about to break through that glass ceiling. And if she succeeds (which I’m sure she will) she will do so not by being a simpering dolly-bird in a tight dress and TV curls, or by stabbing her rivals in the back (she is famously a girl’s girl), but by being true to herself and what she is: a clever, rather feisty, intelligent (she has a degree from Cambridge) mum of three who just works hard and gets on with it. Before her success on Strictly and Traitors, no job was too small for Winkleman. She made a name for herself as someone who could be relied on to fill any given gap in the schedules with humour and good grace, who didn’t mind being a stand-in for someone grander than her, who always made herself the solution, not the problem. Not only is it all about to pay off, she may also be about to reinvent TV. Not bad for a girl who can’t even put her eyeliner on properly. Blood on their busybody hands Axel Rudakubana’s former head-teacher, Joanne Hodson, last week gave devastating evidence to the inquiry into the Southport murders. So shocked was she by the boy’s behaviour, she prepared a report in which she described him as ‘sinister’ and ‘cold and calculating’, and instructed staff to search him regularly for knives. Given her experience with troubled youngsters, her concern ought to have been taken seriously; instead she was criticised by a mental health worker for racially profiling ‘a black boy with a knife’. This accusation, she told the inquiry, ‘shut her up’ and ‘closed her down professionally’ – understandably so, since to be accused of racism would have spelled the end of her career. In other words, some stupid woke busybody prevented Ms Hodson from doing her job properly, in much the same way that officials concerned about ‘cultural sensitivities’ facilitated the rape and abuse of young white girls by gangs of Pakistani men for decades. There’s no two ways about it: these people have blood on their hands. They should – and must – be held to account. I, for one, can’t wait to see what The Donald does with the new ballroom he’s building at the White House. Needless to say, it’s driving his opponents into a rage – but what did they expect? Like all alpha males, Trump likes to mark his territory – and what could be more on brand than replacing the understated elegance of the East Wing with some giant, gaudy appendage? Rishi's right: It's tough at the top Reflecting on his time in government, Rishi Sunak says he ‘was an absentee dad and husband for five years because of my jobs’. I know exactly what he means. Politics is the most demanding of mistresses. We expect our leaders to have no other passion or preoccupation, nothing but 24/7 dedication to the job, at the exclusion of all else. And then you wonder why we end up with heartless automatons like Keir Starmer.
