Sarah Vine's vicious takedown of Serena Cowdy is no surprise: this is how Westminster treats women

Women in Westminster who are childless by choice or circumstance – and can therefore put in regular 13 hour shifts – become characterised as the temptress on the make, and their careers can be ruined overnight

Michael Gove and his wife, the Daily Mail journalist Sarah Vine (Rex)

To understand why the Daily Mail bothered to dedicate its pages to profile a minor journalist who has only recently secured a job writing for The House magazine – a slightly nerdy weekly title that serves the MPs, Lords and staff working inside the Palace of Westminster – you’ll need some background. And here it is.

Of 650 MPs, only 191 are female. Almost 100 years after the first woman took her place in the House, we’re nowhere near the 50:50 ratio that would be more representative of the constituents they serve. Women in the Houses of Parliament are still far more likely to be making the tea than the laws.

When the Guardian’s two female political editors, Anushka Asthana and Heather Stewart, who operate on a job-share basis, took up the new post last year there was much chuntering in the corridors of power about how it “would never work”. And just a few weeks ago, when the assistant editor of The Spectator, Isabel Hardman, entered a room to take part in a debate, she was described by an older, male MP as “the totty”.

The journalist who faced the Mail treatment today was Serena Cowdy, a 36-year-old single woman and a newcomer: a relative unknown in the lobby. Nevertheless, after embarking on a couple of affairs with her married work colleagues (if you are a political journalist, MPs are no more nor any less than that) she has suddenly found herself at the centre of a political storm. The newspapers say she’s been “exposed”. I fear a better word is “destroyed”.

Alongside the Mail’s profile of the life of an ordinary reporter – quite meaningless to 90 per cent of the title’s readers, I’m sure – Sarah Vine, the wife of one Michael Gove, has devoted her weekly column to a character assassination of the woman. She is one of a legion of nubile young things apparently stalking their way around Parliament.

“From researchers to special advisors, Westminster is a hotbed of young, single women, often straight out of university…” – Cowdy is 36, but never mind that – “…their brilliance almost as distracting as their skirt lengths,” Vine writes.

Note that word: “almost”.

Vine reminds us, though inadvertently I’m sure, there are still only two types of women in Westminster: the principled iron lady – Margaret Thatcher, Ann Widdecombe, Ruth Kelly, Theresa May – and the clever seductress – Caroline Flint, Liz Kendall (she weighs “about 8st”, don’t you know!) and now one Ms Cowdy. “See-through blouse, short skirt, lace thong – whatever it takes to get a leg-up in the cut-throat world of politics,” Vine spits, as she describes the target of her rage (showing her apparently faithful husband little respect in the process).

I’m choosing not to name the two MPs Cowdy reportedly slept with, for I genuinely believe it’s none of our business and, if you really wanted to find out, an internet search will tell you in two seconds flat. What interests me, and what worries me, is what will happen next.

I think I can guess the end of the affair for Cowdy, thanks to an aggressive and regressive personal attack by an older woman who ought to know better, given that she too has long worked in an environment where the odds are stacked against her own success.

Describing the temptresses Vine spots everywhere, she writes: “Legs waxed, mascara unsmudged, brains and bodies unblemished by childbirth, they have neither the demands nor the baggage of a wife”.

Why is that? Perhaps it’s because women are pushed out of Westminster almost as soon as they utter an interest in a family life, while men suffer no such fatherhood penalty. There are few mothers working in the most demanding political roles, because those jobs – from research to political journalism to lobbying – have not modernised sufficiently to allow those who want to spend any reasonable time with their children to manage them.

There are women in politics who refuse to admit to their work colleagues that they are in secure, long-term relationships – even some engaged to be wed – for fear they’ll be written off as a future mother, sent on the ‘mummy track’ before they’ve barely started out. And the women who are left, many of whom are childless by choice or circumstance and can therefore put in regular 13 hour shifts, then become characterised as the temptress on the make.

This latest “scandal” (though it is, of course, nothing of the sort) reminds me somewhat of the affair between journalist Anna Fazackerley and Boris Johnson. She, at the time, was a political reporter for another niche publication, the Times Higher Education magazine (disclaimer: I worked on staff there too for a number of years, but not at the same time as Fazackerley) and was getting into her stride in political journalism. He was Boris.

After the affair was exposed, and the press took their equivalent pound of flesh, she left the publication and moved into education research and speechwriting. She later returned to journalism as a freelance writer – but she rarely touches on politics in public today.

Boris? Well, he’s touted to be the next Prime Minister of Great Britain.

And Boris’ wife Marina? She, ironically, made the front page of The Sun newspaper for not being another person suspected of having an affair. Glad we got that clear.

The Independent is a liberal title; we care little for who sleeps with who or how and when, as long as ‘sleeping with the enemy’ doesn’t amount to the actual trading of state secrets. But if you’re of mind to judge someone for the sanctity they grant to their marriage vows, consider this: a woman who broke no personal vow, and did not choose a job of public responsibility but one on the sidelines of politics, is being castigated and humiliated – and will likely suffer financially – for the mistakes of elected men in a position of power.

Cowdy’s reputation as a journalist will be tarnished by this two minutes in the spotlight, while the men she consorted with have only private recriminations to deal with. Can you imagine any other career in which such an outcome might be possible, let alone so predictable?

Vine’s piece comes to its shuddering conclusion about Westminster affairs, eventually: “At the end of the day it’s nothing but a shimmering mirage. Only a sad middle-aged fool would throw away a good marriage and a loving family in pursuit of it”.

Well, perhaps. But at least they haven’t thrown away their careers, too – unlike the single women who must sacrifice their own to share in a single moment of that indulgence of power.