Sign up to FREE email alerts from Mirror - celebs Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Look, I am a great admirer of Harriet Harman . In my humble opinion she'd have made an excellent Labour leader. Still could be.

I’ve just bought her book, A Woman’s Work – that’s how much I love her.

I am passionate about equality, always have been ever since, from the age of four onwards, I was regularly summoned to the kitchen to help my mum do the washing up while my brothers and my dad watched Doctor Who , or whatever else they wanted, on telly.

I was filled with hurt and resentment and a sort of unworthiness.

At secondary school, when I said I wanted to be a doctor, I was asked if I’d thought of being a hairdresser. Strangely, I hadn’t. When I’m on a train, I bristle when the guard checks tickets and says, “Thank you, sir” to the men, then gets to me and says, “Thanks, love”, as if I’m not as important or relevant as the big, fat, self-satisfied bacon roll-guzzling snorter across the aisle.

(Image: Getty Images)

I am fed up with women who’ve done well being likened to men, such as Margaret Thatcher being referred to by Ronald Reagan as “the best man in England”.

There are those who’d say the same about Theresa May when she is, in fact – in the notable absence of a suitable Labour leader – the best person for the job. End of.

For years I was paid very well for being one half of the most watched breakfast telly duo, but not half as well as my partner, Eamonn Holmes.

I am not, however, despite all these slights, a fan of so-called positive discrimination.

So Harriet’s suggestion that the next Doctor Who should be a woman is, if you ask me, ill-founded. Doctor Who was and is a man. That’s what the story originally said. That’s how it was written.

(Image: Immediate Media)

Times have changed, but swapping the good doctor’s gender to make a point wouldn’t empower the poor, unfortunate actress enlisted to play her, nor any of the rest of us.

It’s akin to saying that the next series of Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman, if there ever was one, should star a male actor. Although, in reality, there’s no need for extra representation of men – they already grab the majority of lead roles anyway.

And that’s what needs to change – the attitude that men are better at the job, whatever that job may be, than women.

There should be no need for women to be placed in jobs just to make up the numbers – that’s not empowerment, it’s tokenism. It’s not based on talent or ability.

Positive discrimination is rarely empowering. It is, however, very often patronising.