5 Reasons Why... Nicola is the best Girl Aloud by roughly a billion miles.

1. Well it’s not Kimberley or Nadine, is it. No, it isn’t. Not while Nadine worked with Boyz II Men on a cover of ‘Back for Good’ which was deemed not good enough for an album which limped into the charts at number 114. Not while Kimberley’s Wikipedia page features this sentence: “In May 2011, Kimberley Walsh was named as the new face of Right Guard’s Xtreme Dry Range”. Poor Kimberley. That’s possibly the saddest sentence I’ve ever read, and I’ve read Watership Down.

2. Or Sarah Harding. I have no idea what she’s been doing since the end of the group’s last tour, but if she’s anything like me she’ll have been sitting watching Pointless all day in her pants, checking on the later career of ex-Burnley superstar Graham Branch (the Scouse Rivaldo is now coaching West Kirby Panthers, if you were wondering) and pottering round Morrison’s trying to fathom what the difference between ketchup and catsup is (still no idea). These are all activities which have done precisely nothing for the advancement of pop. If she’s not going to bother being a pop star, less deserving sorts will capitalise. Nobody wants Mike Posner getting his foot in the door. SORT IT OUT, HARDING.

3. Or Saint Cheryl, the patron saint of kicking toilet attendants in the face. Wor Cheryl has a fairly extensive rap sheet: allegedly racially motivated assault, two very dodgy albums and her insistence on employing Will.I.Am, thereby encouraging him to think he has something to offer humanity, are heinous to put it mildly. Add to that the charge of making Ashley Cole think that another human being could be capable of loving him, and you’ll understand why she should be run out of town by a pitchfork-wielding mob.

4. Nicola is ace... Cinderella’s Eyes is a great album, a riot of different influences which pings and fizzes all over the pop spectrum. That ‘Beat of My Drum’ didn’t spend three months at number one is a pop travesty on a par with Dane Bowers and Victoria Beckham’s ‘Out Of Your Mind’. Apart from her assorted qualities, the fact that the professional cretin and walking anti-obesity campaign Chris Moyles called her a “sour-faced old cow” is reason enough to root for her.

5. ...against all the odds. She is from Runcorn, a town I know all too well. If you’ve never been, ensure this description is the closest you ever come to it: numerous biological studies have suggested that the locals are genetically closer to reptiles than humans. The only amenities in town are the bingo hall and the theatre, where everyone goes to watch endless repeats of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and talk about the good old days when Ralf Little would occasionally visit the bingo hall. Her career isn’t just a victory for pop; it’s a victory for the human spirit in the face of the most unfortunate circumstances.