SARAH VINE: Why didn't the Lib Dem ladies just give the old goat a slap? Like most men inept in the art of seduction, Lord Rennard clearly employs a scattergun approach. So, repulsive sex pest? Maybe. Dangerous pervert? No The curious incident of Lord Rennard and the Lib Dem ladies will not go down in party history as its finest hour. The likelihood of anyone - leader Nick Clegg included - coming out of this with their sanity or popularity rating intact is remote. And it's not just personal reputation at stake here: the entire affair has simply underlined the lengths to which warring factions within the Lib Dems will go to stab each other in the back. It's a mystery to me the way people still think of the Lib Dems as Britain's official nice party. With the possible exception of a BBC gender equalities training course, a more stubborn group of puffed-up, two-faced moral fascists you could not hope to find. There are exceptions, of course; but don't be fooled by the beards and Birkenstocks. And the men are even worse . . . I have no axe to grind either for or against Lord Rennard. And there is no question that his appearance - that of an overfed schoolboy with a sweaty top lip and the keys to papa's port cellar - doesn't do him any favours. But if what has been claimed is all he is guilty of, then this entire affair is one gigantic over-reaction. Just to recap, this is the list as I understand it (of course, there may be more that we don't yet know about): He invited some aspiring women activists back to his house after dinner, where he then put his arms around them. When they tried to leave, he pretended there were no taxis (that old trick, eh?). He touched a candidate's leg and invited her up to his hotel room for a drink. He put his hand on another woman's knee. He tried to get another young activist into bed by offering her the complimentary chocolate square from his hotel room. His hands wandered inappropriately during a photo opportunity. Aside from the general ineptitude of this behaviour (women do generally like chocolate, but I've never heard of anyone having sex in exchange for it), this hardly puts him in the Jimmy Savile category, does it? I'm not saying that these women weren't right to complain, or that these encounters were anything other than inappropriate and unpleasant. But these woman are not the victims of a terrible crime. They're simply the objects of some crude and embarrassing sexual advances. Let's face it, Lord Rennard's not exactly Benedict Cumberbatch in a wet shirt and a pair of tight leather breeches (let's all just pause for a moment there, shall we ladies, and contemplate that delightful proposition). I don't imagine his sexual conquests are that frequent. Like most men inept in the art of seduction, he clearly employs a scattergun approach: try it on often enough and sooner or later, by the law of averages, someone is bound to say yes. So: repulsive sex pest, maybe. Dangerous pervert, no. The way to deal with men like Rennard is not some interminable internal inquiry followed by major political meltdown, but a sharp slap to the wrist, a drink in the face or - my favourite - a Chinese burn. How to survive the big 4-0, Kate After four days of hard partying, Kate Moss finally wound down her birthday celebrations on Sunday night. It's time to grow up After four days of hard partying - one for every decade - Kate Moss finally wound down her birthday celebrations on Sunday night. It's time to grow up. As a 46¾-year-old, I've got a few tips on how to survive your 40s. Here they are: Give up smoking. There is nothing more unattractive than a middle-aged woman with blackened teeth, age spots on her hands and the unmistakable beginnings of a "barcode" (the term plastic surgeons use to describe those vertical wrinkles on the upper lip) puffing away on a fag. Sort out the hair. A dirty blonde is all well and wanton in your 30s, but on a 40-year-old it just looks brassy. Enough with the leopard print. It's starting to look Bet Lynch. Only drink expensive wine. A forty-something hangover is ten times worse than a thirty-something one. Good wine contains more tannins (useful antioxidants); also, as it costs more, you tend to drink less. Skip dinner and go to bed outrageously early once a week. If you do none of the above, do this - there are few more effective beauty treatments than a good night's sleep. Thank you to everyone who sent in words to describe the scrabble to find a ringing phone in a handbag before it goes to answer machine. My favourite was i-fracking: deep down and difficult to extract; messy, frustrating and irritating to others; noisy, sent in by Deborah from London. A bottle of fizz is on its way. Fox vs Bichon Frise, part 2. The dog is so terrified of the foxes (we have two - one with a tail, one without) that he's refusing to relieve himself in the garden and has taken to going in my son's bedroom. Naturally, son trod in it, leading to a more than usually stressful school run. The answer, I hear, is even more poo: lion's dung, which you can buy from garden centres. It might be easier - and less smelly - to move house. My bomb scare banger What we drive, according to the AA, affects the way other drivers behave towards us. People are less likely to give way to big, show-offy cars like Porsches and Range Rovers and kinder towards unthreatening "classic" cars. I know this to be true, since I have always had a soft spot for old bangers. In my lifetime I have variously (and ruinously) owned a 1967 Karmann Ghia, a clapped-out Jaguar, a Citroen DS and an old VW Beetle with Irish plates. Apart from the VW, which once broke down just outside Westminster Abbey (this was in the days before mobile phones, so I put the hazard lights on and went to find a phone box; when I returned the whole of Parliament Square had been closed off and the car was surrounded by very over-excited armed police), these old cars always elicited positive responses from fellow drivers. Pity my bank manager didn't feel the same. Our family car is now a Nissan: cheap, sensible, reliable. And wholly forgettable. What is it about men and lesbians? When I arrived in the office yesterday, the only topic of conversation among the gentlemen was the cache of lesbotically themed videos allegedly jettisoned from Rebekah Brooks's apartment by her husband, Charlie. It's amazing how quickly intelligent, capable men can be reduced to sniggering schoolboys by the very mention of the L-word. C4's real cruelty isn't Benefits Street Channel 4, in broadcasting Benefits Street, have shown the realities of a life on welfare, in all its social complexity There's no question that Channel 4"s Benefits Street paints a depressing portrait of modern Britain. It's hard not to eavesdrop on the lives of the residents without a sense that, for some people, life is always going to be a losing battle. The makers of the show have come under fire for supposedly denigrating the inhabitants of James Turner Street in Birmingham, for turning their lives into "poverty porn." In fact, the effect is the opposite: they've humanised an issue that all too often is discussed simply in terms of numbers. They've shown the realities of a life on welfare, in all its social complexity. Shocking it may be, but it's something we all need to be aware of. The same cannot be said of the programme that followed Monday night's broadcast, My Baggy Body, about people left with mountains of excess flesh following weight loss. It had no other purpose than to feed the viewer's prurience at the expense of the poor patients. But there is one Channel 4 show that beats even that: The Undateables. The protagonists include a man with Down's syndrome, a sufferer of Tourette's syndrome, an autistic 27-year-old and several others with serious physical and mental challenges. Described as "uplifting" and "life-affirming," it is, in fact, just an exercise in cruel voyeurism, as one by one these brave souls are filmed going on invariably disastrous dates. I'll take poverty porn over disability porn any day of the week. Mother of all meltdowns The mother in me has followed with growing horror the tale of teenage runaways Edward Bunyon and Indira Gainiyeva, who absconded from boarding school and set off for the Caribbean. My inner teenager, though, is in awe. What I don't understand (apart from why a 16-year-old boy has a credit card that stretches to a five-star hotel) is where they got the guts to pull such a stunt. If I had done a thing like that, my mother would have killed me. Actually, no... first, she would have had me arrested and forced to apologise publicly for being an ungrateful spoilt brat and wasting everyone's time. And then she would have killed me. If there is one thing I cannot bear in a so-called professional woman, it's flakiness. That's why the news that yet another of the 2010 intake of female Tory MPs intends to stand down is so frustrating. Jessica Lee, MP for Erewash in Derbyshire, yesterday joined Laura Sandys (Thanet South) and Lorraine Fullbrook (South Ribble) - as well as, of course, Louise Mensch, who's already gone - in announcing her decision not to fight in 2015. It's bad for feminism and the reputation of women as serious contenders.