LABOUR deputy leader Angela Rayner has spoken candidly about a Mail on Sunday article which suggested she used a “Basic Instinct ploy” to distract the Prime Minister in the Commons.

The paper's report claimed the MP was deliberately trying to distract the Prime Minister in the Commons by crossing and uncrossing her legs.

One anonymous Conservative party source told the paper: "She knows she can't compete with Boris's Oxford Union debating training, but she has other skills which he lacks."

The article sparked a furious backlash. Boris Johnson described it as “the most appalling load of sexist, misogynist tripe” and promised to unleash the “terrors of the earth” on whoever was responsible for briefing the journalist. 

Speaking to ITV’s Lorraine, Ms Rayner said she and her office pleaded with the paper not to run the story, saying it was categorically untrue. 

The MP said she had to prepare her children for the story coming out. 

She said that “all I worry about when I’m at the despatch box is doing a good job and being able to do justice to my constituents and the work I’m doing, so I was just really crestfallen that somebody had said that to a paper and a paper was reporting that”.

“It wasn’t just about me as a woman, saying I was using the fact I’m a woman against the Prime Minister – which I think is quite condescending to the Prime Minister and shows you what his MPs think about his behaviour – but it was steeped in classism as well,” she added.

She said the article also she “must be thick and must be stupid because I went to a comprehensive school.”

“And they talk about my background, because I had a child when I was young, as if to say I was promiscuous - that was the insinuation - which I felt was quite offensive for people from my background,” Ms Rayner added. 

The MP suggested a wider cultural shift is needed: “We have got to teach our sons to be respectful of women and we’ve got to teach our women to be confident about themselves as well.”

Ms Rayner wore a trouser suit for her appearance on the TV show, saying she did not want to be “judged for what I wear”.

“I wanted to be defiant as well because I don’t think that women should be told how to dress, but I didn’t want to distract from the fact that, actually, it’s not about my legs.

“I didn’t want people at home thinking ‘Let’s have a look to see what her legs are like and how short her skirt is or not’.

“Because I feel like I’m being judged for what I wear, rather than what I’m saying to you and how I come across.”

Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has demanded the Mail on Sunday’s editor David Dillon meets him to discuss the story. 

Government minister James Heappey backed the move, telling Sky News: “If the Speaker is going to put a shot across the bows about the way women in Parliament are being reported, that’s a good thing.

“I have no doubt he is protecting freedom of speech and he won’t want to see that impinged but I do think that Westminster has got itself into a mess and it looks awful.”