Trivial and deliberately provocative, Sarah Vine's Legs-it column was a very bad day at the office

Most parenting books recommend ignoring an attention-seeking toddler. The same advice could equally be applied to Sarah Vine. But just as most parents duly carry on making the tea for the first five minutes of a tantrum, naughty children just don't stop. And neither does the publicity loving wife of Michael Gove.
Prime Minister Theresa May (right) and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon meet at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Glasgow, to take part in a bilateral meeting during Mrs May's visit to Scotland. RUSSELL CHEYNE/PA WirePrime Minister Theresa May (right) and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon meet at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Glasgow, to take part in a bilateral meeting during Mrs May's visit to Scotland. RUSSELL CHEYNE/PA Wire
Prime Minister Theresa May (right) and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon meet at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Glasgow, to take part in a bilateral meeting during Mrs May's visit to Scotland. RUSSELL CHEYNE/PA Wire

So while we parked her piece on “the law that will brand all men rapists” and shelved another on “why do the middle classes get blamed for everything?”, Legs-it was the potty on the head moment.

For those who missed it, the front page of yesterday’s Daily Mail was dominated by a photograph of Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Prime Minister Theresa May. Much to the paper’s obvious disappointment, the pair hadn’t decided to settle their considerable differences with a mud wrestle, so the newsdesk added a flourish of their own with the headline “Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!”

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Twitter was, as ever, quick on the offensive pointing out it was the kind of headline which would never have been written by a woman. Well perhaps. But the piece it referred to was. Vine described her editorial as a “light-hearted take on the big shoe-down” (the Mail loves a pun). God knows, we could all do with a laugh right now, but while Vine is many things, the natural heir to Morecambe and Wise she isn’t. “What stands out here are the legs - and the vast expanse on show,” she began. “There is no doubt that both women consider their pins to be the finest weapon in their physical arsenal. Consequently both have been unsheathed”. Unsheathed is an under-used adjective for a reason. It got worse.

There was talk of May’s “long extremities” and Sturgeon’s “shorter but shapely shanks” and then to add a little weight to the piece there was some cod body language analysis .

“Her stiletto is not quite dangling off the foot, but it could be,” wrote Vine who may be angling for a Bad Sex Award. “‘Come succumb to my revolutionary allure’, she seems to be saying ‘You know you want to’.

Every journalist has been asked at one time of another to file a piece they almost instantly feel uncomfortable about writing. I once ended up trawling old folks homes in search of pensioners who resembled a new range of Jelly Babies. But Vine isn’t a trainee journalist who doesn’t feel able to say no. In fact when she was later interviewed about whether she had any regrets about reducing two of the country’s most powerful political figures to characters from a hastily written Mills and Boon novel she was unapologetic.

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“We saw the picture and said look at the kitten heel and the fabulous legs, let’s write some words about them,” she told Martha Kearney’s World at One, giving an insight into the Mail’s rigorous editorial procedures. “We’re a tabloid newspaper and that’s what we do.”

A few supporters quickly formed Team Vine, pointing out her piece was just a sidebar to the main coverage. It wasn’t. The actual story was shoved to the side of page six and was overshadowed both by both Vine and style editor Dinah Van Tulleken’s take on the imminent dismantling of the United Kingdom.

They must, she said, have both been embarrassed to find that they were wearing “boxy navy blazers, skirts that stopped just above the knee, shiny nude tights and pointy shoes”. To be honest Dinah I doubt either of them gave it a second thought.

One of the saner voices in Legs-it-gate was David Schneider. The writer and comedian tweeted simply, ‘The Daily Mail. Edited by adolescent teenage boys’. He might also have added, ‘And mean-spirited girls’. The Mail shifts 1.5m copies a day and boasts a large female readership, but we do have a choice. We can all vote with our feet. At least until they’ve grown up.