By Emily Caulkett-
The Mail on Sunday’s editor has rightfully refused to meet the Speaker of the House of Commons over the paper’s article about Angela Rayner.
Editor David Dillon turned down the invitation, stating that journalists should decide what to report.
In response to Hoyle, Dillon said journalists should “not take instruction in the House of Commons, however august they may be”, adding that the newspaper “deplores sexism and misogyny in all its forms”.
The article, which Rayner said she had “begged” the Mail on Sunday not to run, has sparked outrage from parliamentarians across the political spectrum since its publication at the weekend.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle had made an open invitation to The Mail On Sunday’s editor, David Dillon, to discuss the piece, following uproar over the condescending article which claimed Ms Rayner habitually crossed and uncrossed her legs to distract prime minister, Boris Johnson.
The article was widely condemned as being misogynistic, but comfortably fell within the realms of a free press.
The article had claimed that some unnamed Tory MPs claimed Labour’s deputy leader tried to distract Boris Johnson by crossing and uncrossing her legs in Parliament.
The unnamed source claimed that Rayner had admitted during drinking sessions that she may not have the debating skills to match Boris Johnson, but she has other skills he lacks. It quoted an unnamed Conservative MP saying Ms Rayner “knows she can’t compete with Boris’s Oxford Union debating training, but she has other skills which he lacks”
The piece said: “Tory MPs have mischievously suggested that Ms Rayner likes to distract the PM when he is in the despatch box by deploying a fully clothed parliamentary equivalent of Sharon Stone’s infamous scene in the 1992 film Basic Instinct.”
Ms Rayner said she was crestfallen over the story and that women in politics “face sexism and misogyny every day”.
She also accused the article of being “steeped in classism”, suggesting she was “thick” as she had attended a comprehensive school, and insinuated she was “promiscuous” for having a child aged 16.
Mr Johnson said he respected Ms Rayner as a parliamentarian and “deplored the misogyny” in the piece, while Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called it a “disgraceful new low” for the Conservative Party.
In response to the invitation, the Mail’s front page headline on Wednesday reads: “No Mister Speaker: In the name of a free press, The Mail respectfully declines the Commons Speaker’s summons…”
“The Mail on Sunday deplores sexism and misogyny in all its forms,” Mr Dillon wrote.
“However, journalists must be free to report what they are told by MPs about conversations which take place in the House of Commons, however unpalatable some may find them.”
He added that the freedom of the press would “not last if journalists have to take instruction from officials of the House of Commons, however august they may be, on what they can report and not report”
Angela Rayner has hit out at claims that she viewed “sexist slurs” made against her as a joke, amid a row between the Commons Speaker and the Mail on Sunday, whose editor rebuffed an invitation to discuss an article about the deputy Labour leader.
Ms Rayner has also called on Boris Johnson to address the vile sexism in the Labour Party.