Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner has said she was “crestfallen” that a Tory MP made sexist claims about her to a newspaper, which decided to run a widely-criticised article about them. She told ITV’s Lorraine: “I’ve been overwhelmed because, when I heard the story was coming out and we rebutted it instantly, and was like ‘This is disgusting, it’s completely untrue. Please don’t run a story like that.’
“I felt really sad … I was trying to prepare my children for seeing things online that they don’t want to see their mum portrayed that way. I felt really down about that, but I was overwhelmed by people’s response because I just thought ‘Is that what people expect and think about what I do?’
“All I worry about when I’m at the despatch box is doing a good job and being able to do justice to my constituents and the work I’m doing, so I was just really crestfallen that somebody had said that to a paper and a paper was reporting that.”
