Editor-At-Large: I've got a brilliant idea for a job for Charles...

It's been a good week for crumblies – and I use that term in a thoroughly positive context to refer to the best educated, most adaptable, highest- achieving generation in Britain – the over-50s. The person most of us would prefer to see as Queen according to a recent poll – 55-year-old

Sir Elton John – is featured on the cover of the new issue of Vogue with Elizabeth Hurley's legs draped around his neck. A 50-year-old woman, Shan Lambert, clocked up a victory for wives who get abandoned for younger models, when judges awarded her half her former husband's fortune after 23 years of marriage. Finally, Channel Five announces that it has re-hired a whole gang of senior reporters to present special reports in their news bulletins.

The only over-50-year-old in the public eye who's had an appalling week is my bête noire, Prince Charles, with the revelation that he has so many servants that Mummy finds it "obscene". One of them is specially deputised to squeeze out his toothpaste, and another lays his socks at a certain angle so they are easier to slip on. I shall suggest to Chris Shaw, head of news at Channel Five, that he includes HRH in his list of elderly reporters as soon as possible. The Prince of Wales needs a job and he needs one fast, and what better role than as architectural correspondent?

Over the past 10 years the wrinkled and slightly sagging (in spite of being the richest and largest section of the population) have been airbrushed off magazine covers (except for Saga) and out of television news presentation. God knows how John Simpson survives – possibly by staying out of Britain and far from BBC Television Centre for as long as possible. Deborah Orr pointed out in last Friday's Independent that mothers these days come in all shapes and sizes – from 12 years old to 60, from schoolgirls to single mothers, to two gay men from Essex. But somehow the real world, in all its wondrous diversity, is not reflected on our television screens in news and current affairs.

Nearly 60 per cent of the people who watch news on television are over 55. Unlike the USA, where most of the top senior reporters and anchors – from Barbara Walters to Connie Chung – are middle-aged, in Britain we are increasingly confronted with anodyne muppets such as Matthew Amroliwala. Matthew may have had a distinguished career as a reporter since joining BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, but when reading the main evening bulletin on News 24 or BBC1 he carries all the authority of a portion of Miracle Whip. Nervously twitching his hands (hand-flapping is a major BBC1 sin for all studio reporters at the moment) and pausing at totally inappropriate moments, he manages to reduce everything to a mind-numbing blandness that you just couldn't contemplate in the halcyon era of Carol Barnes or Angela Rippon. I mention Matthew, not because he is stupid, but because he is quite simply the epitome of what BBC news chiefs consider desirable at the moment, the right ethnic mix, the good looks, the whiter than white teeth. Sadly, he is appalling at dealing with any moment of crisis and hasn't realised that clutching a pen is no substitute for authority.

But before we celebrate Channel Five's brave move, let's consider the reality. The special reports by Angela Rippon (58), Martin Bell (64), Michael Brunson (62), Sandy Gall (73) and Carol Barnes (58) will appear for only one week, around 7 December. Then, says Chris Shaw, he may hire "one or two" on a more permanent basis. So don't hold your breath for major on-screen changes. The channel's main newsreader, Kirsty Young, is both blond and glamorous. Much was made of her "informal" approach – perched on the edge of a desk, rather than sitting behind it. I would have been more impressed if she'd subsequently dyed her hair brown, and kept the job, but Kirsty is good at newsreading, and so is the equally authoritative Jon Snow at Chan- nel 4. As he's no spring chicken, Mr Snow is provided with a youthful sidekick in the form of Krishnan Guru-Murthy, an excellent former reporter who used to work for me and was nicknamed "Baby" – even at 25 he looked 12.

The point is that news and current affairs bosses have gone a long way towards hiring the right sexual and ethnic mixture. We have a diversity of accents unheard of 10 years ago. But the question of age still is unresolved. Carol Barnes, now a magistrate, would carry a singular authority reporting on the Queen's Speech and the proposed new legislation dealing with youth crime. Why does television news and reporting have to be so careful to be unbiased and unauthored? Only Andrew Marr and John Simpson have the guts to stick their heads above the parapet at the BBC. And don't write and tell me about Michael Parkinson – it's easier to be over 50 and an on-screen historian, talk-show host, gardener or naturalist, than it is to read the news on the BBC. The largest consumers of terrestrial television are my age, so perhaps the news bosses think we get a secret sexual frisson from vacuously gorgeous newsreaders. I prefer houseplants.

* * *

I've got a lot of time for Cherie Blair, but the news that she's seeing a psychic called Sylvia Caplin bothers me a bit. I'm sure that being the PM's wife as well as a successful barrister carries a lot of stress, but Sylvia Caplin and her daughter Carole seem to have become worryingly indispensable to Mrs Blair.

Carole, once a dancer of the Pan's People variety, advises Cherie what to wear, what to eat, how to exercise and what crystals to hang round her neck. Sylvia Caplin, a former ballet dancer, was my personal trainer for two years. I dumped her when she started telling the tabloids who her clients were, and they included Felicity Kendal and the reclusive Selina Scott.

Sylvia was an expert on where to get your eyes lifted and your sagging chin tucked. She was a good trainer but thoroughly indiscreet. Now she's re-emerged as a New Age guru, an expert on everything from rebirthing to "channelling", a service Cherie apparently consults a great deal. Chanelling involves using your guru's "special powers" in order to deal with problematic issues. With Tony Booth as your dad, and Lauren Booth as your half-sister, life's not easy, but can I just offer some free advice? How insecure do you have to be to consult people who have so few qualifications to provide constructive help and support? Dump the Caplins and talk to ordinary women who can pro-vide advice based on the real, not the spirit world. I'll come round for a chat any time you like.