Labour and Tories trade 'sexist' insults

The Tories have been accused of "institutional sexism" after their would-be leader branded MPs selected from all-women shortlists second rate.

Iain Duncan Smith said such MPs were not of a "high quality", prompting an outcry on the Labour benches.

The chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party Women's Group Fiona Mactaggart admitted the problem was not isolated to the Conservative Party but, unlike Labour, the Tories were doing nothing to improve matters.

"I think all political parties have always been to some degree institutionally sexist," Ms Mactaggart said. "But by comparison the Labour Party is doing much more to try to overcome that. Iain Duncan Smith might think that but there are a lot of women in the Conservative Party who don't agree with him."

She claimed that at one selection meeting, a Conservative hopeful's husband had been asked what he was going to do for sex while his wife was working at Westminster.

"There is an institutional sense in that party that the model MP is a man, might have been in the army, and has perhaps been a researcher in the House of Commons. That is not the case in the Labour Party," she said.

The Labour Party has experienced its own problems with sexism – last week Jane Griffiths, the Reading MP, complained about sexism and bullying in the House of Commons, and Tess Kingham, formerly the MP for Gloucester, gave up her seat amid similar claims.

"We are beginning to change the culture," Ms Mactaggart said. "But it is horribly slow."