A North East police boss has demanded “real action” to combat sexism, amid outrage over accusations that Labour’s Angela Rayner tries to distract Boris Johnson in the House of Commons by crossing and uncrossing her legs.
Claims made by anonymous Tory MPs and reported in the Mail on Sunday about the deputy leader of the Opposition have sparked widespread condemnation this week. Kim McGuinness, the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), has now spoken out about the misogyny she has faced as a woman in politics and has called on men to “take responsibility”.
The Labour PCC was described shortly after her election in 2019 as a “Barbie doll” by one of her opponents and has been angered by a “real focus” on whether or not she will have children. Ms McGuinness, formerly a councillor in Newcastle, was “not surprised” by the claims about Ms Rayner by some fellow MPs, but says such attitudes are “not exclusive to politics – it is something experienced by women in every workplace and in everyday life”.
