ALEXANDRA SHULMAN: It’s no secret- that is gentle porn, not ‘positivity’

Did I miss something? Have I been in a Sleeping Beauty-like stupor for the past six years since the ‘final’ Victoria‘s Secret fashion show, only to wake up and see the same event play out almost identically last week?

There it all was: G-strings, thongs, bare bottoms with hints of pudenda, bondage corsets, ankle ties and towering heels paraded on a cavalcade of some of the world’s most beautiful women.

But I could have sworn that when the 2019 show was cancelled, we were awash with body positivity – i.e. don’t knock yourself for being too fat – and claims it was time for women to own their bodies rather than in any way cater for the male gaze.

Yet here we are again with this massively expensive fashion show positioned as a celebration of women, while looking just as soft porn as it ever did.

I have no beef with women wanting to display their perfect bodies in scant slivers of leather and lace, and can understand how successful models such as Gigi and Bella Hadid might enjoy strutting their stuff under a canopy of angel wings, but I simply don’t buy that this is a celebration of women.

Victoria’s Secret claim to have returned in a new diverse guise. But plopping the odd transgender model in the slender form of Alex Consani on the catwalk and trussing up the plus-size body of the luscious Ashley Graham does not reflect the changes that have taken place over recent years. 

Nor does the attempt to show that sexy lingerie is for all ages succeed by luring Carla Bruni and Kate Moss, both in their fifties. The po-faced Moss looked as if she was reciting the large numbers involved in her fee with every strut.

The show was a lost opportunity to demonstrate how, in recent years, women’s underwear has come a long way, combining sex appeal with comfort, often designed by women.

Our underpinnings are no longer the domain of skimpy push-up bras and knickers cut like a cheese wire. Beautiful high-waisted pants shaped like 1950s’ bikinis, wireless bras and control knickers that, through developments in fabric technology, can now support without leaving deep dents in our skin, have changed the underwear scene – and for the better. 

But you wouldn’t know that from last week’s show. Victoria’s Secret has no truck with any of this and perhaps they have no need to reflect how women choose to dress in this camp extravaganza. They still shift about £4.5 billion of kit a year.

Which is fine. But please don’t say that this pink carpet display and its otherworldly beauties in their silky bondage are doing it in the name of female empowerment.

Why’s Labour silent over sleaze tsunami?

Come back Alastair Campbell, all is forgiven. Or if not actually Campbell, some other Malcolm Tucker-style figure.

Where on earth is the all-controlling communications person that a political party needs to get its message across to recalcitrant journos, fanatical about holding their every action up to scrutiny.

If the current Labour operation thought it had such a person, they are missing in action. The slew of criticism of Sir Keir Starmer’s government has largely gone undefended in any meaningful way.

I’m almost thinking of suggesting myself for the job. Surely any fool could effectively argue that since Taylor Swift’s concert was cancelled in Vienna after an alleged suicide attack plot, and three small girls were killed at a Swift-themed dance party in Southport, it was sensible to agree to some kind of police escort for her London shows. Who cares in the greater scheme of things whether Starmer and Yvette Cooper were handed concert tickets?

But the only response to this continuing fuss about the singer’s VIP escort, along with the Sue Gray debacle and Lady Starmer’s free dresses, seems to be complete silence from No 10. They need a rottweiler in place, and quick.

The day I joined the Spice Girls…

Starmer was also treated to a brush-by – a fleeting Wembley Stadium backstage encounter with Taylor. 

Years back, when I was writing the first Vogue interview with Victoria Beckham, my family and I were offered a ‘meet and greet’ at the reunited Spice Girls gig. 

Though we’d spent time with Posh earlier in the dressing room, this was a chance to meet the whole Spice gang.

 As a result, somewhere in the digital ether, there is a spectacularly embarrassing picture of us all grinning, squeezed between Scary and Ginger. 

Fortunately, Starmer appears to have avoided similar.

Would you have stopped this horror?

Only horror should be the reaction to the court evidence of the long-term torture inflicted on ten-year-old Sara Sharif by her family and it seems inconceivable that nobody paid any proper attention to it. Neighbours reported hearing screams from the house, but didn’t think it their business to investigate, adding to the ghastly scenario.

It’s easy to think we ourselves might have behaved differently, but in truth those of us who live in cities probably all frequently hear blood-curdling screams in the night. And instead of rushing into the street to check what’s happening, it’s all too easy to hunker deeper into the bed and put the noise down to a couple of foxes.

Shock news: Harry made a good move!

There isn’t much I envy about Harry and Meghan’s life. They can have their home-made chutneys, £12 million Montecito mansion and free-range chickens, but if it’s true they’ve bought a home in Portugal, I’m properly jealous.

The country is fabulous, with sweeping Atlantic beaches, Moorish architecture, delicious food and fizzy Vinho Verde. Lisbon is one of the great capital cities.

And, if they bought it in time, Harry could escape the restrictions of a post-Brexit UK passport as the Portuguese gave ‘golden visas’ to foreign property owners until earlier this year.

This may turn out to be one of the couple’s rare good moves.