Angela Rayner puts Boris Johnson off his stride, but not because of her legs

The first reported that some 56 MPs have been referred to the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme over allegations including sexual harassment and sexual misconduct. Among those facing allegations are three Cabinet ministers and two shadow cabinet ministers.

Alongside that damning report was a frankly disgraceful misogynistic hit piece courtesy of the Mail on Sunday in which an anonymous Conservative MP accused Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner of a “Basic Instinct ploy to distract Boris”.

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon backs Angela Rayner after Tory 'Basic Instinct' smear

The charge is that during sessions where Angela Rayner has stepped in for Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions, she has crossed and uncrossed her legs to put Boris Johnson “off his stride”.

It is as crass as it is ludicrous. It is as repulsive as it is pathetic.

For a national newspaper to print such a story and label it an “exclusive” is beneath contempt.

It is based on nothing more reliable than a quote from one male MP to a male journalist. You can imagine how that conversation went, with them huddled in one of the many bars in Parliament, wet-lipped and mutually titillated by the very idea of it.

Without a hint of self-awareness, the paper describes this ridiculous suggestion as the “fully clothed parliamentary equivalent of Sharon Stone’s infamous scene”. Or, to put it another way: woman at work sometimes moves her body, hold the front page.

If we need any further evidence that the MP who offered this “exclusive” is a crank and an idiot, we need only look to what he believes is the strategy behind it. “She knows she can’t compete with Boris’s Oxford Union debating training, but she has other skills which he lacks,” he told the journalist.

What a load of guff. It is universally acknowledged that on those occasions when Boris Johnson has faced Angela Rayner instead of Keir Starmer, she has comprehensively wiped the floor with him.

Where the Labour leader can be wooden and slow to deviate from script, Rayner is punchy, sharp and funny. She disarms the Prime Minister not because she is in possession of a pair of legs, but because she is quick-witted and can think on her feet.

She isn’t afraid of Boris Johnson’s Oxford Union debating training. Why would she be? Boris Johnson – despite what his right-wing media fanboys might think – is a terrible public speaker. They mistake his plummy tones and obscure Latin references for intelligence.

His only real debating skill is being totally without shame. He doesn’t care if what he is saying sounds ridiculous or is factually inaccurate. He knows that if he says it often enough and loudly enough there are some commenters who will regardless declare that he gave an “assured” performance.

He offers soundbites rather than coherent arguments.

Though if, as his colleague has suggested, he is so easily put off his game by having a woman sitting opposite him then they should probably feel lucky that he can even manage that.

Rayner described the story as “gutter journalism”. “Boris Johnson’s cheerleaders have resorted to spreading desperate, perverted smears in their doomed attempts to save his skin,” she said.

“I won’t be letting their vile lies deter me. Their attempts to harass and intimidate me will fail. 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.”

Rayner went on to say that she hoped her experience of sexism and classism wouldn’t put others of a similar background off considering a role in public life.

That’s precisely what this sneering attack was designed to do. Westminster politics is still dominated by a core group of men who went to the same schools and universities. If Rayner throws Johnson off his stride it is not because of her legs: it’s because he knows that she is everything he isn’t.

She is hard-working where he is lazy. She is sharp where he is tired. The relics of his privilege and class might have got him to where he is today, but they are no match for somebody who has real-life experience and has had to graft their way to the top.

We might have hoped we’d moved on by now to a place where women in politics weren’t defined by (or attacked) for their bodies or appearance. As the Mail on Sunday has reminded us, we’ve still a long way to go. We’ll get there a lot faster if we have more working-class women and fewer mediocre posh men in positions of power.

The next time Johnson faces Rayner at PMQs he will be even more nervous than usual. Not because she might be wearing a skirt that day, but because he knows she has the intelligence and wit to use this latest misogynistic attack to her full advantage. I’ll be cheering her on when she does.