doesn’t she know exactly what she’s doing? The same poses recur. Legs akimbo, one foot trailing carelessly on the floor to expose that hairless V, and a shirt or nightdress falling aside to reveal small breasts – these children, to use the modern jargon, seem to have been “groomed” to please adults with their combination of innocence and seduction.Paedophilia today is more demonised than any other crime; even rape and murder. Nothing so enrages public opinion as the discovery of a paedophile ring, or a solitary inadequate exposing himself at dusk in the park to children hurrying home for tea, or buying them sweets so that he can touch and stroke them, or worse.Do the paintings of Balthus glamorise and encourage this predilection? I don’t like the pictures, which often seem an empty parody of the sublimely spiritual art of Piero della Francesca; but that’s a personal choice Objectively, I can’t accuse Balthus of inciting paedophilia. For centuries, great painters have depicted revolting acts of cruelty (think of the crucifixion, or Saint Sebastian – his bleeding body pierced with arrows, the flaying of Marsyas). Nobody claims that these encourage sadism: though they may stimulate those already addicted to the practice.Ever since the Renaissance, artists have shown exquisite youths, partly or entirely naked, without being labelled homosexual – though many have been. Naked women by the million have been transformed into great paintings; but only the Victorians found it necessary to waft semi-transparent scarves across the salient parts, thereby making nudity indecent rather than natural.Art is about itself, the transformation of three dimensions and five senses into a flat surface covered with paint Life is about reality.

The fact that two little girls have just been murdered is part of that reality. Art could not match it; and not even sadistic pornography could be held directly responsible Balthus – bizarrely – is innocent.. PERHAPS IT all boils down to a matter of style. Political interviewing these days is generally enormously more confrontational than it was when I first began to broadcast. We will never, thankfully, go back to the days when the country’s top politician was asked, respectfully: “Have you anything to tell us, prime minister?” Or when Harold Wilson lunged at a youthful John Simpson at King’s Cross station in London and punched him in the stomach for daring to wave an unsolicited microphone under his nose.

But, over the years, increasingly rigorous and searching interviews on radio and television have – some of them – transformed themselves into a situation where the Accused – the politician on the spot – is subjected to a deeply disdainful interrogation by the “real” People’s Representative: the interviewer

Perhaps it all boils down to a matter of style. I don’t claim that the answers to these questions are not fascinating, nor that – if you’re in the knockabout world of politics – you shouldn’t have to give a good account of all aspects of yourself. It’s just that I believe a confrontational, even gladiatorial style is something with which men are more comfortable than women. And therefore it follows that if verbal fisticuffs are what’s required in these highly competitive days, then there will continue to be a gender imbalance.However, this may be a temporary phenomenon. When the “ladette” generation grows up and moves into political programmes – and “ladettes” as we know can be amazingly rude – the men will have to take a deep breath and step back before the onslaught.It is also said that women interviewers in current affairs programmes ask slightly different questions from male colleagues.

That in talking to war correspondents, for instance, they will more naturally ask about the “human effect” of the war in question: about the displacement of families and the streams of refugees. Men will be more comfortable with statistics about the hardware and league tables of deaths.I’m not sure that this is true, but it is a perception in some quarters. If women step outside these perceived boundaries, they are deemed to be taking a ghoulish interest in topics that are not their concern. Private Eye has long called me “Sue MacGhastly” in its media spoofs because it is alleged I once took too much of a detailed interest in the casualty figures in a train crash.