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PLATELL'S PEOPLE: It's not just Adele. Big girls are often the unsung stars

Published: 21:01 EST, 20 November 2015 | Updated: 21:52 EST, 20 November 2015

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After a chief executive of a drugs company was heard saying he couldn't employ overweight women, Amanda Platell asks, what about the hugely successful larger ladies, like Adele?

THE chief executive of a drugs company has been found guilty of sex discrimination after he said he wouldn’t employ any woman who wasn’t slim and beautiful.

While interviewing potential staff, David Noakes said of one candidate: ‘How are we supposed to hire her, did you see what she was wearing and the size of her?’ Of another: ‘She is ugly and overweight and I only employ beautiful women.’

Apart from being crass, sexist and offensive, Mr Noakes was also making a stupendously bad business decision. For has he not noticed that the larger lady is in the ascendancy in all walks of life?

Never mind such luscious larger ladies as Nigella Lawson, Oprah Winfrey and Kirstie Allsopp — all successful career women loved by millions.

The most powerful woman in the world, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is a solid size 16, as is Hillary Clinton, the woman on track to become the first female President of America.

This week has also seen the return of the most successful female artist in the world: Adele, who says one of the reasons young people connect with her is that she’s not just another stick-thin pop poppet.

I have long been critical of women (and men) who become obese, on the basis that it’s bad for their health, sets a terrible example for children and is a burden on the NHS.

But there is a big difference between the obese and the millions like Adele who are just a bit plump. And the fact is, very few women remain slender for life.

So it is bizarre that any business boss could think that having a Barbie doll as their PA would impress their clients. Surely they would rather have someone who is efficient, diligent and doesn’t pop into the loo every five minutes to fluff up their hair and retouch their red lipstick.

Some of the finest, cleverest and most hard-working women I know are fuller-figured.

My mother is one, and was the best PA anyone could ever hire. And the best mum. My friend Zoe, who works at my local Marks & Spencer, recently promoted to be front of house, is a classic example. Gorgeous, gregarious, frighteningly efficient — and with a fabulous curvy figure.

It’s time for Neanderthal bosses such as Mr Noakes to realise that the size of a woman’s brain is not measured by her waistline.

PS. Why is there still a size tyranny for women on TV? No one bats an eyelid at the bulk of Eamonn Holmes, Adam Boulton or Adrian Chiles, but can you think of a single plus-sized woman on TV news or current affairs these days? Even Lorraine Kelly has shrunk from a size 14 to a size 10.

Adele - who is a little plump - is one of the most successful stars of her generation

York University cancelled an International Men’s Day seminar — which hoped to highlight that suicide is now the biggest killer of men under 45 — after protests from ‘diversity’ militants. Yet this is the same uni that proudly held a ‘Transgender Day of Remembrance’. A warped world, isn’t it, when an event that affects half of the population is denied, yet one that only touches on a tiny minority is celebrated?

Having made his first tentative appearance as a presenter on Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday, Nick Robinson apologised for sounding ‘croaky’ — the result of a bad cold which exacerbated damage caused by his recent surgery for lung cancer. He’s not been back on air since and it’s not known when he will return. Take your time, Nick. Your devoted fans will patiently wait for you to be restored to full health and full voice.

Before entering the celebrity jungle, Susannah Constantine was told by daughter Cece to cover up so people ‘don’t realise you’re a fat hippo’

Pants to the bikini babes

Before entering the celebrity jungle, Susannah Constantine was told by daughter Cece to cover up so people ‘don’t realise you’re a fat hippo’.

The 53-year-old mother-of-three has since been filmed in a T-shirt wearing a pair of flesh-coloured granny pants. Frankly, by not trying to compete with the brainless bush babes in bikinis she looked magnificent. Yet the internet trolls were at her immediately, one saying she should have had a trip to Victoria’s Secret before baring all. Give me a grown woman in her comfy pants over a starlet in a sequinned thong any day.

Just don't, Doc

As they vote to go on strike, we should not be fooled by junior doctors’ claims that they are trying to protect patient safety.

They’re not. They’re only trying to protect their pay.

Which makes it hard to justify the cancellation of 100,000 operations and hundreds of thousands of outpatient appointments, let alone the three weeks of disruption expected to follow the strike.

Platell says we should not be fooled by junior doctors’ claims that they are trying to protect patient safety, as she believes they are striking to protect their pay

And this at the time of year when the NHS is under most strain.

I know how hard doctors work, but in the battle to protect their terms, I fear they risk squandering something just as precious. Their patients’ respect.

Terror so close to home

+ the French national anthem will be sung before the kick-off of every Premier League game this weekend as a show of solidarity. A fine idea. Trouble is, most of our preening, dim-witted, overpaid British footballers can’t even manage one verse of God Save The Queen, let alone a foreign anthem. They probably think La Marseillaise is a brand of champagne.

+ Nick Clegg argues the Paris atrocities prove we should stay in the EU as it improves information-sharing between nations. Since German police failed to notify their French counterparts they’d stopped a car full of guns and explosives on its way to Paris a week before the atrocities, I’d say that we’re better off in charge of our own intelligence.

+ Cyprus has said it will refuse to take around a third of the 90 migrants who claimed asylum there after landing on a British military base. After background checks, the authorities have grave security concerns. Five of the rejects are suspected of connections with terror groups. With 20,000 Syrians on their way to Britain, is it any wonder so many of us now fear our charity is turning into the perfect cover for jihadi murderers?

Livingstone told Labour MP Kevan Jones, that he needed ‘psychiatric help’ after questioning him

Livingstone's slurs prove Labour's vile

After Ken Livingstone told a fellow Labour politician, North Durham MP Kevan Jones, that he needed ‘psychiatric help’ and was ‘obviously very depressed and disturbed’ for having the temerity to question Livingstone’s defence credentials, I have only one question: Why hasn’t this vile bully been sacked?

Though one in five people in this country is affected by depression at some point in their lives, Jones is one of the few MPs who have ever publicly declared they are among them.

Is it any wonder so few speak out when they are treated with such cruel and callous derision?

That Livingstone has been allowed to stay in his post proves only that Jeremy Corbyn’s new ‘nice’ Labour Party is as vicious and nasty as it ever was.

The Duchess of Cambridge is said to be considering launching her own line of organic baby food, with help from sister Pippa, after feeding Prince George on organic vegetables grown at Anmer Hall. She has been inspired by Prince Charles’s Duchy Originals brand. I wonder what Kate will call her products. Duchess’s Not Very Originals?

After Charlie Sheen confessed he had HIV, his father — Hollywood veteran Martin Sheen — said he was fiercely proud. ‘I couldn’t believe the level of courage I was witnessing, and that it was my son,’ he said.

Courage? Charlie is a violent, alcoholic, drug-using degenerate who, claim his ex-lovers, slept with scores of women after contracting HIV, often without protection and without informing them.

Martin should be thoroughly ashamed of his son, not proud. But then Martin himself was a violent alcoholic who dragged his young family to hell and back on the set of Apocalypse Now. Perhaps if his son had had a better role model, he wouldn’t have behaved so abominably.

After Charlie Sheen confessed he had HIV, father Martin Sheen said he was fiercely proud

Kate Winslet says it’s been easier to pursue her movie career now she has a ‘very present’ house husband. Honesty at last from an actress who’s often said being a mum is the first and most important role she will ever play — while starring in five movies this year alone.

The author Kathy Lette is reported to have bravely seen off an intruder who broke into her home at night. Little wonder. Her remorseless pun-making is enough to send even hardened criminals running for the hills.

I loved the picture of Boris Johnson rudely being given ‘the finger’ by a fellow cyclist — though I didn’t realise Dave still had a bike.
A parliamentary committee has insisted Tom Watson write a letter of apology to Leon Brittan’s widow after he said the late peer was ‘as close to evil as a human being could get’. A forced, insincere and long overdue apology from one of the most odious men in politics will hardly make up for the poor woman’s suffering.