"Politics is show business for ugly people": Jay Leno... one of my favourite quotes.
But oh dear.  As I don't read these papers, I was alerted to this story by my friend Jon's blog http://www.jonworth.eu/spain-and-the-uk-a-world-of-differenc e-for-women-politicians/ . 
Seems to me that in the UK at least, the "people" only means male politicians.  The Daily Mail, Sun and the Telegraph online seem to think that it's not how effective women politicians are, it's how good looking they are that counts. Links for the curious are below.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article327889.ece
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=486994&in_page_id=1770
Even Headcases, the ITV animated sucessor show to Spitting Image, had a sketch this week charting the level of terror threat against the depth of Jacqui Smith's cleavage.

I'm not completely immune to judging female politicians on looks. Poor Ann Widdecombe for example - however attractive or repellant you found her politics, she will always be a component of Professor Umbridge in my mental version of the Harry Potter books, and the pilloring that she received may well have been partly on the basis that she is nothing like a glamour model. 
But then really attractive women don't seem to be taken seriously, and this otherwise very good article debunking the ones above sets out a kind of dress code, albeit slightly tongue in cheek  http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/fashion/article2026265.ece .

Now, I've had to spend some time working out how to dress to disguise my post-baby body in order to feel more confident. There's a multi-million pound business out there, spearheaded by "What Not to Wear", "Trinny and Suzannah Undress" and Gok Wang's "How to look good naked" on TV designed to do just that. 
And I think it's healthier to encourage women to seek to be confident as they are rather than striving after an unattainable and unhealthy size 0.

Jacqui Smith is as entitled to dress in a flattering manner as anyone else, the rules shouldn't be different because she is the Home Secretary. Oh and that's kind of the point.  I know that up to 70% of communication is non-verbal.  But she does actually have important things to say on important issues such as policing and terrorism.  

Wouldn't it be nice of instead of the "she's too fat/ too thin/ got a spot/ what IS she wearing?" school of journalism intruding into reporting on female politicians, newspapers might actually judge these women equally as serious professionals? 
Even better if the press aimed at women included some more serious journalism a la Marie Claire magazine (or any of the men's magazines that cover politics and serious issues as well as fashion, sport etc.) rather than always the real life "my brother is now my sister and stole my boyfriend!" lowest common denominator stories.

Serious point that might not immediately seem relevant, but bear with me. 
This morning there was a report on the radio from Darfur.  It detailed villagers who had escaped from the ruins of their lives.  Every time they encountered armed men, the women in the group were violently raped. Often it was a choice at knifepoint, submit or be killed.  Many are now HIV positive as a result, just as happened in Rwanda. It makes me angry that anyone feels they can do this, treat other people so dispicably, so totally without respect.  As if they are property or objects.
Why have I put this at the end of this article? Well, the objectification of women works at many levels.
What can be thought of as a harmless "tit"ter looking at the body of a woman rather than listening to her is a rung on a ladder of taking away her authority, of trying to have power over her. The horrific situation of the women in Darfur may be at the other end of this long ladder, but it's the same ladder. Don't ever kid yourself it's not.