Aide turns up in shiny black mini-skirt and back-seamed tights to greet visiting (African, Muslim) dignitaries

I can’t believe nobody sent that aide back home to change – or at least down the road to Marks & Spencer for a knee-length matt black skirt and plain tights – when she turned up for ‘meet and greet’ duties dressed that way.

Back-seamed tights and an ultra-short satiny black skirt would, even independently of each other, be completely inappropriate to the situation. But when worn together, they scream “tacky escort in a hotel bar – $50 for half an hour”.

And that is quite apart from the fact that back-seamed tights have always been the height of tackiness in any context, while ultra-short skirts have not been fashionable – and therefore mainstream – for the last 15 years at least. And shiny black should never, but never, be worn in the daytime or for any work-related event even after 6pm.

What makes it so much worse is that the dignitaries this prime ministerial aide is greeting are Muslim men. They will have had to follow her, trying to avert their gaze from her less-than-gamine rump and legs in their small skirt and back-seamed tights, all the way up the main staircase of the Auberge de Castille.

They seem to think that what applies in the Super One Sex Shop continues to apply in the context of government and international relations.