Images: GQ via digitalspy.

‘The Iron Lady’ opens in UK cinemas this weekend, and with all the interest the movie is generating in Mags, it’s a clever PR move for the Tory it-girl-in-waiting to bathe in some reflected glory.

Louise Mensch is a highly successful writer of chick-lit fiction and recently married Metallica and Red Hot Chili Peppers manager Peter Mensch. She is also the MP for Corby & East Northamptonshire, and appears in this month’s UK edition of GQ magazine, claiming that, among other things, it is wrong to “trivialise a woman politician based on her appearance“.

Commentators have remarked upon the fact that Mensch is sporting a Dolce & Gabanna skirt and startlingly effective makeover in the photos accompanying the article, and that this somehow ushers her protestations into the realms of the ridiculous. It certainly doesn’t help, but as a woman, one wonders what else she is suppose to do?

If Mensch hopes to gain any kind of decent foothold on a political playing field currently dominated by upper class white boys, she is going to have to play the game. Aligning herself in the public consciousness with a woman who, for most, represents power and leadership and little else (the 80’s was an awfully long time ago, after all) is a smart move.

Of course, if this was a generally accepted truth, it would be an admission that politics today is not about the long term implementation of policy. It’s about selling yourself to the public in the short term, gaining office and then holding onto power for as long as possible before the press start telling everyone what they should’ve already spotted. That you are a total tool with no intention or interest in representing the people who voted you in.

Let’s focus on the positive, shall we? At least Mensch has a pedigree which implies she has decent taste in music. If nothing else, this limits the likelihood of another embarrassing Arctic Monkeys-related incident.