When Wag-in-Chief Michelle Obama visited the UK, the papers all gushed and twittered about her hair and clothes, as if we had suddenly gone back to the Fifties. In today's Telegraph, Liz Hunt shares my horror of the recent outbreak of Stepford Wifery:

Political Wags are the most prominent women in public life right now, a source of high entertainment and vigorous debate. In Britain, the visit of Michelle Obama remains a cherished memory; what she said, what she wore, that endearing break with protocol when she placed an arm around the Queen's waist. A little more than a year ago, it was Madame Sarkozy who captivated us in a Jackie O tribute pill box.

Where, though, are the women who command international attention for their presence and their politics? Where are the modern-day Margaret Thatchers? There's Angela Merkel, but she's dull, dull, dull (and German). Hillary Clinton, the most powerful woman in the world, is generating headlines for the wrong reasons after a rambling speech in which she equated the battle for world peace with her battle of the bulge. Now the focus is on her very own evil axis – her marriage to Bill. Iran? Pakistan? Who cares when she's been spotted holding hands with the old goat?

At home, the picture's even worse. There's Jacqui Smith, a woman who will be remembered for plugs and porn rather than any policy of note. And, of course, Harriet Harman, who is steamrollering through an alienating agenda of social engineering only because everyone else in the Labour Party has given up. She wants gender, rather than ability, to determine access to employment – which is presumably how she and Smith got their jobs. How ironic that Harman's Equalities Bill is launched as the 30th anniversary of the election of Britain's only woman prime minister looms. Mrs Thatcher's sex was irrelevant; her ability and competence were everything. She was simply better than all her peers. You can't legislate for that.