Pete Waterman, one of the Pop Idol judges, evidently cannot. He stormed out in disgust after the size 20 former waitress was voted the audience’s winner. Waterman probably spoke for many men when he told our Michelle that she had “zero personality and zero charisma” (translation: “You’re a lard-arse and I don’t fancy you”).

But for the millions of parents out there petrified that their Victoria Beckham-fixated daughters are going to lapse into a bout of anorexia before their 12th birthday, what a breath of fresh air La McManus must be.

She refuses to diet (she lost three stone when the contest began but is now resolved to stick at 15 stone) declaring: “If people are going to buy into me they have to accept me as I am.”

In a week when women newspaper columnists castigated Cherie Blair for letting her 15-year-old daughter Kathryn appear on the family Christmas card with “tree trunk” legs, McManus has injected some sanity into an increasingly crazed world.

Renée Zellweger was traumatised that she had to fatten up to a — gosh! — size 14 for a few weeks for the first Bridget Jones movie. Liz Hurley says she would have to kill herself if she were ever as fat as Marilyn Monroe. High time, is it not, that our glamorous women got a life? Of course McManus will continue to suffer gags about her Falstaffian frame. Male commentators joked that Michelle wouldn’t win because “big birds always get slaughtered and stuffed at Christmas”.

Inevitably, there have been chants of Who Ate All The (Mince) Pies? But she has blown a raspberry at the weight-obsessed pop industry and the public has backed her. That the majority of the 10.26 million votes were cast by girls aged nine to fourteen gives cause for hope.

Perhaps we have J-Lo and Beyoncé to thank. Only last week The Skeleton herself, Victoria Beckham, was bemoaning the fact that she didn’t have a curvaceous bum like J-Lo. Maybe it is renaissance time for the fuller figure. Maybe we are entering an era where fat women are no longer only acceptable as comedians or opera singers, but also as pop stars. We could be looking at Alison Moyet Mk II.

If you ask me, this was ultimately a vote against blandness. Mark Rhodes, McManus’s yawningly dull opponent, could tick all the boy-band boxes: inoffensive looks, twinkly smile, average voice. But can the world take the tedium of another Will Young? We think not.

McManus was the best singer and McManus won. She stood out from the crowd because she didn’t conform to the Stock, Aitken, Waterman blueprint. The young audience liked that. So who knows? Maybe the next time a hefty but talented lass walks into a record company office they won’t automatically laugh her out the door.

Rumour has it that Pop Idol has now had its day and this was the last series. So the fat lady sang and now it’s all over. What a fairytale ending.

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