Speaker blasts ‘offensive’ sexist Angela Rayner article and summons editor to meeting

Lindsay Hoyle’s condemnation of the article comes hours after Boris Johnson vowed to ‘unleash the terrors of the earth’ on the Tories responsible for making sexist slurs about Angela Rayner

Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has summoned the editor of the Mail on Sunday for a meeting over the “offensive” article the paper published about Angela Rayner over the weekend.

The story published in the right-wing paper triggered a wave of condemnation over sexism and snobbery from across the political divide, including from Boris Johnson.

It claimed Labour’s Deputy Leader was deliberately crossing her legs in the Commons in a bid to put the Prime Minister “off his stride” when she stands in for Labour leader Keir Starmer at PMQs.

Ms Rayner on Sunday hit back at “vile lies” from Conservative MPs who attacked Ms Rayner’s PMQs debating skills which “she knows can’t compete with Boris’s Oxford Union debating training”.

Mr Hoyle told the Commons the story was based on unsubstantiated claims and caused “misogynistic offence”.

“The story can only deter women who might consider standing for election,” Mr Hoyle told MPs in the Commons.

Mr Hoyle confirmed he will also be meeting Tory MP Caroline Nokes, chair of the Commons Equalities Committee after she suggested the journalist who wrote the story should have his Parliamentary lobby pass revoked.

Labour leader Keir Starmer earlier heralded Angela Rayner as the next British Deputy Prime Minister, after condemning Parliamentary culture as “sexist and misogynistic”.

The Labour leader gushed over his colleague describing her as a “fantastic and formidable woman” and a “brilliant politician” in her own right who has so much to offer the British people, in an interview with ITV’s This Morning.