A decade ago, I stepped confidently out of my front door on the morning of the EU Referendum vote to accompany my then husband, Michael Gove, to the voting booth.

It had been quite a fraught few weeks, to put it mildly, and my appearance was not exactly top of my agenda. Still, I thought I looked passable. I was clearly deluded.

So I have great sympathy for the female ministers suddenly thrust into the spotlight as a new Cabinet was chosen, having to deal with the entire country inevitably discussing their sartorial choices.

Not all of which, I think we can agree, were an unalloyed triumph. Still, with so much to juggle – jobs, children, pets, useless husbands – most of us triumph every time we manage to leave the house on time, or not actually in our pyjamas, never mind having to march down Downing Street on live TV.

Is it fair that women should come under this extra scrutiny? Of course it bloody isn’t – but I’m afraid it is just the nature of the beast.

I’ve never been much of a snappy dresser. I’m an awkward shape, and like so many women who don’t fit the willowy mould favoured by fashion, clothes have always been a source of anxiety for me.

I’m not like Lady Starmer or my old friend Samantha Cameron, both of whom could, frankly, wear a bin liner and get away with it; I’m not like my mother or my daughter, who can make the cheapest of charity shop finds look a million dollars.

Finding clothes for me is about identifying the least unflattering of the limited choices available and making the most of it.

Sarah Vine says she's unsure that anyone has been snapped in a worse outfit than the one she wore when she left home with her then husband Michael Gove on the morning of the Brexit vote

That said, quite why my brain decided on that particular morning that this particular outfit was the one for me is genuinely baffling. Let’s break it down, shall we? A pair of nondescript, badly cut black trousers that grazed my ankles, only highlighting the ghostly white of my legs.

A pair of black ankle boots that likewise did no favours.

But that’s not even the worst part. I decided to top it all off with a black jacket that was not only completely the wrong shape for me, but also unpleasantly shiny and at least three sizes too small, with three-quarter-length sleeves that made my unnaturally large hands look even more like shovels than usual.

This I wore over a chiffon leopard-print M\&S top that was faintly transparent, just enough to show my bra and offer a hint of muffin top. I’m not sure anyone has ever been snapped in a worse outfit either before or since.

Except perhaps for the time I went to Rupert Murdoch’s wedding to Jerry Hall in what I thought was a rather chic gold jacket, but which subsequent photos revealed would have been more suited to panto.

Then there was the state dinner at Buckingham Palace in the presence of the late Queen, where I wore a dress that made me look like Morticia from the Addams Family, only if she existed exclusively on a diet of cheese and port.

Or the time I was papped outside our old house wearing a chevron-patterned top of such hideousness I genuinely think I must have been having some psychotic episode when I bought it; or when I was photographed with our dog Snowy at Westminster Dog of the Year in what appeared to be an old cushion.

So really, I am in no position to comment on what anyone else wears (not that this always prevents me from ever doing so, especially since my own critics have never spared my feelings in this respect).

But I do know how it feels to get it so spectacularly wrong and how despondent that can make a person, especially if one wasn’t all that confident about one’s appearance in the first place.

The trouble with being photographed in public is that to get it right you either have to be young and beautiful (in which case chances are you do it for a living anyway), or you have to plan everything down to the last button.

Colours, shapes and textures must be stress-tested under a variety of weather and lighting conditions. Necklines and hemlines must be tightly controlled to flatter. Suitable underwear must be worn. This, as many women who for whatever reason suddenly find themselves in the public eye soon discover, is almost a full-time job in itself.

If the appearances are likely to be frequent – say, for example, in the House of Commons or at official functions – a substantial budget is required.

Freebies and discounts are generally frowned upon, not least because they rarely come without strings attached. In this respect female politicians and/or the female partners of politicians are at a distinct disadvantage compared to their male counterparts. All the blokes need do is put on a suit and make sure they don’t spill anything down themselves.

The women, by contrast, are required to look stylish and elegant at every turn, while never wearing the same outfit twice or appearing to try too hard.

The other big problem is that what looks good on camera is not the same as what looks good to the naked eye.

There is a huge difference between the kind of clothes that work in your everyday life – on the school run, at the gym, at work, on a date, taking out the bins – and what works in pictures. The way certain fabrics hang and cling to the body can be fine in the mirror, but unflattering under the pop of flashbulbs and/or in ultra-high definition.

Unless it’s their job to be photographed in public, most women don’t think too hard about all this stuff, especially if they’re over the age of 40 and therefore not quite as image-obsessed as that generation who grew up staring at themselves in a smartphone.

I certainly don’t imagine Andy Burnham’s wife, for example, has ever really seen herself in that context. She’s a busy woman with a full-time job.

Age is another factor. We all have an image in our mind’s eye of what we look like and, as we get older, the gap between our ideal selves and the person staring back at us in the mirror only widens.

Being thrust into the public eye can be a very rude awakening, as it was for me. Until I saw those pictures of myself, I was genuinely not too concerned with my appearance. I simply hadn’t realised how much I had let myself go. I was 49, but I still had an idea of myself as I was in my 30s.

In a way, it did me a lot of good. I lost weight, began to exercise more and generally tried to take care of myself a bit better. And while I still wouldn’t claim to be a style expert, I have a much better sense of what works for me.

I’ve also learned to smile so that my face doesn’t disappear into my neck and worked out how to stand when the cameras come out. It doesn’t always work, of course – but now when I see footage of myself on TV or in photos, I don’t hate it. For me, that’s about as good as it gets.

As for Westminster, perhaps it’s time to consider some kind of uniform, just to give everyone a level playing field. The place is run like a school anyway, with the Speaker as headmaster and the Whips as prefects. Perhaps that could be one of Mr Burnham’s radical proposals.

Anything not to have to see Angela Rayner in that jacket again...