I'm fascinated by the BBC's about-turn on the subject of older woman newsreaders because it puts the Corporation's equality agenda on a crash course with TV's inequality agenda. TV doesn't believe in equality. It believes in what things look like. Although everybody in the organisation is fully aware that their on-screen talent has to be representative of the population as a whole, everybody in TV is hardwired to believe that the best people to put in front of a camera are people who you might at least entertain the idea of sleeping with. I know there are exceptions but they just go to prove the rule. The standard news team line-up all over the world is: grey-haired man and gorgeous blonde woman. That's why children's TV programmes are presented by nubile stage school babes and not hearty girl guide types who would be invaluable in a shipwreck. That's why it will be a cold day in hell before you see a man turning over the letters in Countdown. That's why Coronation Street now appears to be so full of glamorous young women it must be having an effect on local property values.

The likely outcome of this is that Anna Ford and Moira Stuart will be asked back to the very Corporation that edged them out. Being TV people they will not get on their high horse about it. They'll go back, probably. One of the reasons they'll go back is that they must know, in their heart of hearts, that one of the main reasons they got hired in the first place was because of their looks. I look forward to lots of Anglo-Saxon agonising about this. I think we should relax and be more like the French, who hired Melissa Theuriau. Here is the news: