Page 3 Profile: Caroline Lucas, MP

Caroline Lucas, MP

Why has she got a problem with this page?

No, not this page three! The former Green Party leader is the unexpected poster girl for the anti-sexism “No More Page Three” campaign, which has its sights on The Sun. She catapulted herself into the centre of the row when she wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan during a Select Committee hearing this month.

Did it work? Is she the reason the paper has a new editor?

Not quite. In a heavy blow to the movement, the red top’s new editor, David Dinsmore, yesterday announced that glamour models are here to stay.

Why won’t he listen?

Speaking on LBC radio, he appealed to campaigners by comparing Page Three pictures to an exhibition of 18th-century erotic Japanese art. “This stuff at the British Museum is far more explicit and raunchy.”

So Lucas is disappointed?

Bound to be. The knockback comes days after she was reprimanded by colleagues for wearing the large-lettered T-shirt in the first place, thus adding insult to injury.

The Chair of the MP’s debate on sexism, Labour MP Jimmy Hood, interrupted Lucas, told her to “put her jacket back on” and demanded that she comply with Westminster’s dress code.

So that’s it then?

Ms Lucas had pledged: “If Page Three still hasn’t been removed from The Sun by the end of this year, we should be asking the Government to step in and legislate.” And with a history of involvement in the peace camps of the 1980s and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the mother-of-two is not one to bow out without a fight.

Her record for avidly supporting left-wing issues has earned her a full trophy cabinet of awards. The latest, from the Political Studies Association, was for the formidable task of influencing the political agenda. Watch out, Dinsmore.