Tristram Hunt referred to Nicky Morgan as “love” during a debate last week, the education secretary claimed yesterday.
Ms Morgan made the allegation while playing down the significance of David Cameron telling Angela Eagle, a Labour MP, to “calm down, dear” in the Commons in 2011.
Speaking on the Murnaghan programme on Sky News, Ms Morgan said: “The shadow education secretary said to me last week in education questions, ‘Not my responsibility, love’. So I’m afraid to say there can be things that are said sometimes in the heat of the moment on all sides of the House.”
Ms Morgan insisted that the prime minister was not innately sexist. She said: “I’ve had a conversation with him and actually I think he absolutely is a feminist. He’s on the side of women, he’s done a huge amount to get women into the cabinet.”
Focusing on the subject of women in politics to mark International Women’s Day yesterday, Ms Morgan said that politicians must do more to encourage female engagement with the political process.
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Harriet Harman, the deputy Labour leader, said: “The suffragettes fought for the right for them to vote but we as women in politics have got to give them a reason to vote.”