HARRIET Harman has rejected claims that Labour's choice of a pink 16-seater minibus, that will be filled with female MPs touring marginal constituencies to secure women's votes, is patronising.

 

After the announcement was made, Caroline Dineage, the Tory backbencher, claimed the wheels had already come off Labour's General Election campaign.

"Getting Harriet Harman to drive around the country in a pink van to try and attract the female vote is as patronising as it gets. This is clearly just another divisive gimmick that the electorate will see through," she declared.

But Ms Harman hit back, saying Labour did "not need any lectures on patronising women" from the Conservatives and added: "Our bus equals - listening to women, ending pay inequality, 25 hours' childcare, tackling violence against women."

The deputy party leader made the pink bus announcement as she launched Labour's women's General Election campaign, targeting the nine million women, who did not vote at the last election in 2010.

Ms Harman will spearhead the "woman-to-woman" campaign, which will aim to visit more than 70 constituencies in the run-up to polling day.

She said the decision by the party to mount its first "proper" women's campaign reflected the need to demonstrate that politics was not just a "men-only" activity.

"We don't want women to give up on politics. If you look at the figures, the disaffection that there is with politics is even more pronounced among women," she explained.

"We want women to feel that this is their democracy and politics is for them as well as for men. Politics is too important to be left to be a men-only activity. We are saying this is a woman-to-woman activity," said the London MP.

Claiming David Cameron and the Tories had nothing to offer female voters, Ms Harman said Labour would be highlighting policies on issues such as childcare, domestic violence, equal pay and political representation.

She poured scorn on the Conservatives for having auctioned a shoe-shopping trip with Home Secretary Theresa May at the party's fundraising Black and White Ball this week.

"Whilst the Tories are auctioning a shoe-shopping trip with Theresa May, Labour is out there having a real discussion with women in all parts of the country," she added.

Asked about the choice of colour for the mini-bus, Ms Harman said it had been chosen by a "collective".

She joked: "Is it not magenta or something? We wanted to mark that this was something different. We wanted it to look conspicuous and therefore a white van was not going to do the job."