Who would be the most inappropriate journalist you could think of to send to cover the famine in Somalia? Asked that question, it wouldn't be long before most people arrive at the correct answer: Liz Jones, a narcissistic fashion journalist, a lifelong anorexic, a person who just spent £13,500 on a facelift, and a confessional columnist who charts her obsessions every week in the Mail on Sunday's You magazine. If a further question was asked along the lines of "could there be anything worse than the simple fact of sending such an inappropriate journalist to cover a famine?", the answer would have to be yes. Yes, she could use the occasion to berate the British NHS and the caring professions for not being caring "at all". Apparently they failed to realise the fate of the starving Somalians rested on Jones being able to queue jump.

Jones has a column in the main section of the Mail on Sunday and this week – alongside other contribution on the hats at Zara Phillips's wedding and her usual You magazine diary currently detailing her romance with an anonymous rock star – used it to berate the NHS. Jones has not visited an NHS doctor in 20 years, apparently preferring a private GP in Sloane Street. But her private GP was unable to complete all the vaccinations she needed for Somalia until the following day so she turned to a local GP's surgery in Somerset asking them to do some of them. Jones was told they didn't have her records and anyway the clinic was booked up. The NHS's problem, Jones ranted on receiving this reply, is they don't actually care: "They follow the rules, they never put themselves out, they never look to the bigger picture."

It's obvious why this kind of political opinion would appeal to the Mail on Sunday. Much more worrying, though, is the fact she's been asked to travel to Somalia and cover a devastating famine.

Jones can occasionally rough it, or so she would like her readers to believe. A few years ago, she moved to the wilds of Somerset with her rescue horses, dogs and cats and has since filled endless columns with the details of her suffering. At one point Jones declared she was so broke she was unable to feed all her animals, a column that provoked a multitude of impoverished old cat lovers to send her their last pennies. One online commentator rightly asked whether the Mail on Sunday was sanctioning begging now. The narcissism and inconsistencies reached a peak recently when the "impoverished" Jones, already surgically altered, wrote in detail about the £13,500 facelift, which had finally given her "the face I deserve".

It's easy to have fun with Jones. The internet is full of sites devoted to exposing her distortions (the crumbling house in Somerset turned out to be a very pleasant place) and some suggesting her latest romance may well be fantasy. But there are serious issues raised by her being sent to Somalia. This is not a one-off. Jones has been on a number of previous trips to report back on the suffering of others, including one to Bangladesh, which resulted in an article illustrated with a grinning Jones posing like a model in front of her suffering subjects. That Jones should agree to such trips is not entirely surprising. I've noticed some journalists and travellers seem to seek out places of extreme suffering almost as a way of trying to quell discomfort about their own personal dissatisfactions and unhappiness. And as we know, Jones is very, very unhappy.

But even if she is motivated, writes well and is capable of grasping wider issues, isn't it grotesque to send someone who represents the worst excesses of the western fashion industry's obsession with dieting and appearance into situations where people are struggling to survive? To send someone whose name it is impossible to read without thinking about her Louboutin shoes, cashmere blankets and leg waxing? It's not as if the Mail doesn't have other highly capable women writers, like Barbara Jones, whose articles, following in Ann Leslie's tradition, are well researched and powerful.

Maybe the Mail on Sunday is labouring under the mistaken belief that Jones's huge following is based on liking her as a person, which would induce a willingness to read about difficult subjects. But they should do some qualitative research. Jones may have a large readership but many read her in a state of disbelief that anyone could be so self-deluded, so self-indulgent and so utterly unsatisfied at the same time. The "me, me, me" attitude that pops up in each article means no matter what subject she's covering, it will only ever be a backdrop.