Having attended on September 10th the annual bash of the TaxPayers Alliance I realized that Matthew Elliott and his team, and I and the Claremont Road campaigners have much in common. Both groups believe in the lowering of taxes and the shrinkage of national and local government.

A classic example of wasteful government expenditure is surely evidenced by ministerial recommendations as to how we should aspire to look.

The Daily Mail commented July 28th on a pronouncement by Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone (LibDem, Hornsey and Wood Green):

"Christina Hendricks is absolutely fabulous," says Lynne Featherstone, who held up Hendricks' outline as an ideal shape for women.

Highlighting the "overexposure" of skinny models and the impact they have on body image among young people, Ms Featherstone went on: "We need more of these role models. There is such a sensation when there is a curvy role model. It shouldn't be so unusual."

I would make two comments:

a) The expenditure of taxpayer funds on ministerial attention to attractive body shapes is highly questionable;

b) Even if you disagree with me on point a) the Minister is simply wrong to trumpet Ms Hendricks as an example of an "ideal" body shape.

If we taxpayers are to fund any research and pronouncements along these lines surely it should focus on health. There is no indication that Ms Featherstone even enquired as to Ms Hendricks' health and general fitness. I am unaware that Ms Hendricks is either an athlete or even a club level active sportswoman, so even if she is a regular gym user it is unlikely that she is possessed of a body that can be described as "ideal" in any objective sense.

Furthermore, why should our Equalities Minister be looking Stateside for physical role models of unexceptional health or fitness when we have here in the UK supreme examples of both female and male healthy bodies?

This is not a matter of personal taste, we have the benefit of objectivity. The UK's leading nutrient technology company, Vitabiotics, have identified both Mark Foster, the fastest man in water, and Alison Waters, our national squash champion, as owners of two of the best bodies in the country. I have no doubt that the current performance of both these bodies has been enhanced by the individuals' phenomenal training regimes and assisted by nutritional supplements resulting from years of Vitabiotics' scientific research.

Vitabiotics' primary selection criteria for these role models are human health and fitness. Any ancillary personal appeal of these bodies is but a fringe benefit of the activities that have produced them, namely sport.

I hope that the TaxPayers Alliance would agree with me that if our scarce national funds are to address this subject at all we should focus on health, sport and sports facilities. Barnet needs a new sports centre, not more supermarkets.

I suspect that the Minister was straying into the area of sex appeal, rather than human health. If that is so that constitutes an egregious misuse of taxpayer funds and is utterly pointless.

When it comes to sex appeal we need no Government advice, nature does that for us. Nature prevails despite the avalanche of external advice that we should select partners based on other, ephemeral qualities. Jamie Whyte has summarized this point in a classic article first published in the Times in Sept 2006 “Why the best Pecs get the Best Sex”, which I will reproduce next week with the author's kind permission.