It's easy for her with a 'Kensington helmet'

Poor Cherie Blair. She can't win really, can she?

During the 1997 election, she was ridiculed for appearing on the steps of her Islington home the morning after the night before with bed-head hair. Now she has received a swipe - from none other than Sandra Howard - for enlisting the out-of-hours services of "the priciest hairdresser in town" for the campaigning month ahead. There are two points. First, that there are some women, Sandra Howard included, who have hair that pretty much does as it is told, and needs no more than an occasional tint job and a blow dry once a week (I call this style of hair the "Kensington helmet". It stays pretty much intact all week, which makes me wonder if these women sleep standing up). And there are other women whose hair is very unruly indeed.

It might be too floppy, or too thick, or too frizzy. Poor Cherie has what my very expensive but very understanding and discreet hairdresser, Bruno, who works at Aveda, would call "a problem head, with rapid grey regrowth" (the darker the hair, the more noticeable the silvery halo). The second point is: where on earth is the shame in a woman wanting to look her best?

A morning blow dry, weekly pedi and mani and a bi-weekly visit to an eyebrow station is the bare minimum for professional women in New York and Paris, so why not here?

I say well done Cherie for her follicle foible. Now if only she could do something about Tony's foundation tide mark and his wonky tooth....