Sarah Vine - Was It The Wine?

“I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left” - Margaret Thatcher.

Not that she's insanely jealous, you understand

This morning, Mil The Younger may also be cheering up immensely, after yet another clueless pundit resorted to abuse, rather than counter his arguments and policies. No-one will be surprised to discover that the whiny and petulant snark in question came from appallingly overrated Daily Mail pundit Sarah Vine, reputed to have secured her well-remunerated berth in the service of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre principally because she is also Mrs Michael “Oiky” Gove.

Ms Vine, who has previously been called out by Private Eye magazine for taking to Twitter while, as the Eye put it, “Absolutely Pixellated”, is clearly unhappy that the General Election campaign is progressing not necessarily to the Tories’ advantage - and, worse, that she and her fellow Mail pundits are seeing little return for feeding their readers an incessant diet of knocking copy.

All of which brings us to yesterday evening chez Gove, when it seems “Oiky” was on media duty and Ms Vine was left to watch his heroic efforts (no sniggering at the back) from their comfortably-off home. The first sign that something might be amiss came with a Tweet telling “I am very proud of my husband tonight”. Ey up, what time was that posted? Aha, 2249 hours. Maybe not the best time to be hitting the old TweetDeck.

It got worse: more than an hour later came the really sour stuff. “Just read Labour's manifesto. So thin it would be banned from a French catwalk” she sniffed, after cattily posting the night’s pièce de résistance: “Ed Miliband is the Kim Kardashian of British politics. He thinks he's amazing - but all anyone can see when they look at him is a giant arse”. Mrs T would not have approved of a Tory MP’s wife sinking to such insults.

Why might she be in such a mood? Ah well: today’s column in the Mail tells you all you need to know. “Tomorrow, something terribly disconcerting is happening to me. Even though in my head I’m convinced I’m not a day past 32, I will officially reach the grand old age of 48. In my mind’s eye, I’m still a moderately attractive young woman … But when I look in the mirror, I am instantly disabused of any such notion”.

It gets worse. “At 32, I had never looked or felt better. I had just met and fallen in love with my husband … there have been wonderful moments since, of course. But in terms of the self, nothing quite like it — and I know I’ll never look as good as I did back then … This is why women - especially those of my age - are so desperate to do everything to halt the rot … though I haven’t quite booked my first facelift, I’m not discounting the possibility either”.

Sounds like the estimate she got might have been a bit of a shock, then. But still not a good reason to take to Twitter late at night, especially after getting called out by the Eye for it. Never mind the advancing years and remember the paycheques, Ms Vine.