SHADES OF GREY AND PEOPLE OVER FIFTY

The launch this week of a Labour Party commission, headed by Miriam O'Reilly and Arlene Phillips, into employment age discrimination against women over fifty comes as BBC news presented Fiona Bruce admits to dying her hair to keep her job. Both O'Reilly and Phillips were cast off by the Corporation from their roles in Country File and Strictly Come Dancing in favour of younger women.

As a woman just turned fifty and with her natural hair colour, including some grey, this is an issue close to my heart. However, the Labour Party's apparent championing of it will not make me renew my membership, lapsed since one Tony Blair became leader in the mid-1990s, because Britain's cult of youth, or rather of a youthful appearance, began with New Labour and the so-called Blair Babes.

For although John Major was only a youthful forty seven when he took up prime ministerial office in 1990, he was already grey and - although we did not know this until much later - the erstwhile possessor of a love life with fellow MP Edwina Currie probably closer to Fifty Shades of Grey than anyone in New Labour, with the possible exception of David Blunkett, would be capable of delivering.

Returning to discrimination against mature women the workplace, the issue, it seems to me, is not so much about age as appearance; although there are those for whom an older person's knowledge and experience are unattractive. However, discrimination on grounds of appearance is not confined to older women or men, and beautiful people may be discriminated against as well as plainer types.

The key issue - and apparent reason why BBC Country File sidelined Miriam O'Reilly, but retained the more mature John Craven - is that one's face fits, not just physically (the requirements of high definition television, for instance), but also, and even more importantly in most cases, metaphorically. Yes, it is fitting in with a younger group of colleagues that employers think older women will not do.

This apparent problem is often ascribed to a belief that older and younger women do not "get on" as well as men of different ages, and tend to replicate domestic roles in the workplace. The female menopause is also cited as an actual or potential risk to workplace equilibrium, although this seems to be able to accommodate the male's midlife changes.

Nevertheless, many men over fifty have been known to experience turbulent mood swings, and possibly even hot flushes exacerbated by spicy food, when challenged by younger, and perhaps more virile colleagues, including uniformed police officers. This fact may throw some light on the case of Andrew Mitchell (see below), and remind us all that, in life, there are indeed many shades of grey.