Nicola Sturgeon on how she plans to counter the detrimental effect of the 'vicious' media scrutiny of her appearance during the general election

The SNP leader said she’s worried young women may be put off going into politics as a result

Women “really led the fore” in this year’s General Election, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said.

The Green Party’s Natalie Bennett, Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood and Sturgeon not only performed admirably, but also were, bar David Cameron, the only leaders not to resign their positions following the results.

With 56 new MPs in Westminster, Sturgeon is now one of the most influential women in British politics.

But they also took far more flack than they should for their personal appearances in the tabloid press.

The Scottish First Minister in particular faced deplorably sexist treatment by the media during her campaign trail, and was routinely scrutinised for her aesthetics.

“The main thing that’s changed about me is I’ve got older,” she said of her supposedly changing appearance – another key “talking point” in tabloid coverage of her political career.

“As you go grey, you have to decide whether you want to do something about it, you get more comfortable in your skin.

“I’m not going to sit here and lie and say you don’t pay more attention to that.”

“What annoys me and worries me most, I’m used to reading pretty derogatory things about my hair and my make-up and so on,” she continued. “What worries me is if young women see me [getting this flack] the papers and it puts them off going into politics.”

“Ed Miliband got rough treatment of course, but I don’t think it was as vicious as it was with the women.

“So what I’m going to deliberately try to do is take a positive from it. If people are going to pay attention to what I wear, I’m going to wear more Scottish designers and promote Scottish talent.”

She added that while she didn’t have a Thatcher-esque team behind her giving her elocution and etiquette lessons, she did “once get some advice on how to project my voice by Sean Connery”.

Memorably, Sturgeon had her head Photoshopped on Miley Cyrus’s Tartan bikini-clad “Wrecking Ball” body by The Sun.

“That’s sexist, there’s no doubt about it,” she told ITV of the mock-up.

She also attacked “sexist” questions as to why, aged 44, she was yet to have children.

“'A man would never get asked about clothes or hair or something else,” her husband Peter added on what politics is like for a woman in 2015. “It's just different.”