I watched Katie Price, aka Jordan, on BBC1’s ‘Graham Norton Show’ last night and predicted a barrage of public criticism concerning her views about life, relationships and Pete. Whatever Katie does/says these days, she invariably attracts a good old pasting from the readers of the nations ‘red tops’, who post their steaming invective using the publications’ online comment facilities.

OK, so Jordan’s boobs are a tad on the ridiculous side – especially when uplifted by last night’s sugar plum fairy-esque dress. OK, so she makes snide suggestions about Peter Andre and his manager having a fling and her comments about the bedroom prowess of new boyfriend, Alex, are surely designed to make her ex hubby jealous. But isn’t this relatively normal behaviour for someone who has just been through an acrimonious break-up? So why does the newspaper reading public act shocked and disgusted all the time?

Aha – it’s because Jordan is a mother. The sniping - largely from females, I hasten to add - has been fuelled by Jordan’s nomination for the ‘Celebrity Mum of the Year Award’, which has occurred again this year despite (as the ‘Daily Mail’ puts it) her “very public marriage break-up”. This nomination was guaranteed to have female hackles rising from the start. Now, if I remember rightly, Kate Moss was nominated in 2006 for the same award despite being out ‘on the tiles’ all the time and, in 2005, being snapped sniffing cocaine with potato-faced beau, Pete Doherty. But Kate usually managed to look sprightly for her modelling assignments the next morning so I guess that was all fine, yeah. The ‘Celebrity Mum of the Year Award’ is clearly throw-away PR fluff, so why get hot under the collar about it in the first place?

Comments about Jordan on online forums invariably include words such as “ugly”, “botox”, “plastic”, “no self respect” as well as the likes of “can’t string two sentences together”, which blatantly isn’t true. Oh yes, and she can ride too (I mean horses, fnarr fnarr).

There’s a significant culture of women dragging down other women in the UK. Whatever you may think of Jordan’s breasts and other enhancements, she’s a self-made success and she’s headstrong: tendencies which other people seemingly dislike. Why do people react with shock and amazement when Katie takes off her clothes or goes a bit wild, as she did in Ibiza earlier this year, attracting much media criticism? The lady forged her career as a glamour model, for heaven’s sake, so why have a full set of kittens because her outfit is on the skimpy side?

Furthermore, I have a real problem with people being labelled a “bad mother” because they have procured a new boyfriend and are trying to move on with their lives. Jordan has received bitchy comments for seeing Alex because it’s “to soon for the children”. She doesn’t even live with Alex: is she supposed to sit moping ‘on the shelf’? These public attitudes are even more questionable when they’re applied to Mum but not Dad: how many times do you hear the comment: “So and so is a bad father - he’s always down the pub and he looked a bit drunk.” Yet Jordan goes out socialising and the “bad mum” comments abound. A double standard exists - it’s the same one under which we have “yummy mummies” but no equivalent for daddies - and, to my mind, it shouldn’t be encouraged.

If the people who read stories about Katie and post nasty comments simply chose not to take an interest in her, rather than filling up online forums by calling her a “fake celeb without any talent”, etc., then perhaps the media storm would die down, as they seem to desire. But these readers don’t really want the media coverage to end because it’s far more ‘fun’ to have an easily available target for their envy, bitchiness and angst. They thoroughly enjoy crossing Jordan, or perhaps I should say cussing Jordan.