Bigotry was once perceived to be refusing people a job on the basis of their skin colour, not allowing women to go to university and jailing individuals because of whom they loved. Now the social media addled snowflake generation thinks it is putting pictures of people on the front page and daring to comment on their appearance. If that is bigotry then everyone who comments on how someone looks is a bigot. Which somewhat devalues the charge.

@kaygeeuk @maryecostello @mrharrycole I’ve got great legs

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) September 4, 2011

Apart from Owen Jones – who judges his own legs – everybody in politics knows they are to some extent judged by voters on their appearance. Politicians know this, newspapers know this, any popular journalist worth their salt would have looked at that picture and thought “story”. The Daily Mail did it because they thought it would be of interest to their readers. That is why they ran it.

The Daily Mail not only has more female readers than male readers (52% to 48%), it has more female readers than any other British paper. The picture was not about the sexual objectification of women, it was a story about the body language and appearance of two powerful women, written to appeal to women readers. That some feminists seem to think that it was aimed at getting men to ogle two middle-aged women in conservative business attire explains a lot about those feminists.

In reality most people outside the politico-media echo chamber would think the Mail’s front page unremarkable. Now some idiot has reported the Daily Mail to IPSO. For commenting on a picture, which is clearly not a breach of the editor’s code. What a monumental waste of time.