Angela Rayner has issued a furious condemnation of Tory claims that she crosses and uncrosses her legs in the Commons to distract Boris Johnson.
The Labour deputy leader called out an extraordinary “sexist” newspaper account from Tories likening her tactics while sitting opposite the Prime Minister as a fully-clothed equivalent of Sharon Stone’s infamous scene in the film Basic Instinct.
The Mail on Sunday report has been widely condemned as blatant sexism and subject to a storming response by Rayner herself.
The MP took to Twitter on Sunday morning to express her anger.
She said: “Boris Johnson’s cheerleaders have resorted to spreading desperate, perverted smears in their doomed attempts to save his skin.
"They know exactly what they are doing. The lies they are telling.”
“I stand accused of a ‘ploy’ to ‘distract the helpless PM. By being a woman, having legs and wearing clothes I am conspiring to “put him off his stride”.
“But it is the PM who is dragging the Conservative Party into the sewer - and the anonymous Tory MPs doing his bidding are complicit."
"He and his cheerleaders clearly have a big problem with women in public life. They should be ashamed of themselves.”
She added that women in politics face “sexism and misogyny every day” but that she would not allow “their vile lies deter me”.
References to Rayner’s working class background and being a young, single mother were, she said, failed attempts to intimidate her.
She said: “I’ve been open about how I’ve had to struggle to get where I am today.
"I’m proud of my background, I’m proud of who I am and where I’m from - but it’s taken time. We need more people in politics with backgrounds like mine - and fewer as a hobby to help their mates.”
Amid condemnation from Labour colleagues on online outrage, Oliver Dowden MP, the chair of the Conservative Party, dismissed the claims while carefully stopping short of a denial that certain Conservatives may have made the allegation.
He said: “This is a totally ludicrous story that I don’t recognise in any way at all.”
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