The row about Stuart Wheeler shows Britain has turned into a giant version of Woman's Hour

The hunt, since you ask, is on for one of Stuart Wheeler’s three very pretty daughters – Jacquetta is a well-known model – to opine about their father’s off-message remarks about women being ‘nowhere near as good as men’ at chess, bridge and poker. This was in response to a question about why there are so very few women on company boards. Stuart Wheeler, UKIP treasurer and Douglas Hurd lookalike, went on to explain that both sexes are good at different things and ‘you don’t necessarily want to impose a minimum of either sex at the top of any profession or at the top of any board’.

Here Wheeler showed his engaging naivety. His observation was, of course, the contemporary no-say. You’re allowed to deny quotas as being unnecessarily bureaucratic but not to remark on gender differences, any more than you’re allowed to suggest that Russia’s take on gay rights is its own business.