Andrea Leadsom has confirmed our view that she is not ready to be prime minister

The kindest interpretation of her words is that they reveal her inexperience

'She possibly has nieces, nephews, lots of people, but I have children who are going to have children who will directly be a part of what happens next' (EPA)

The Independent did not support Andrea Leadsom as a candidate to be prime minister. Our view has been vindicated by this weekend’s developments. In an interview with The Times, she managed to imply that a mother would be better qualified to run the country than someone who, like her opponent Theresa May, is childless.

The kindest interpretation of her words is that they reveal her inexperience. We have been here before, as recently as this time last year, when Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham used their experience as parents as part of their pitches for the Labour leadership. However, they avoided making any direct comparison with Liz Kendall, their childless rival. Meanwhile Jeremy Corbyn’s grown-up son merely worked on his campaign.

Ms Leadsom’s approach was different. Inadvertently deploying the device of Greek rhetoric known as apophasis, she told The Times what she was not going to say about her opponent. “I don't want this to be, ‘Andrea’s got children and Theresa hasn’t.’ Because I think that would be really horrible.”

If that had been all she had said, she would have been entitled to protest, as she did, that she had been misrepresented. The trouble is that she went on: “But, genuinely, I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake.”

There is no way of interpreting that except as saying that Ms Leadsom has a stake in the future of the country because of her children, and that Ms May does not. That not only would have been a “really horrible” thing to say, it was really horrible.

Nor did Ms Leadsom do herself any favours in her lashing out yesterday at The Times and the media generally. “In the course of a lengthy interview yesterday,” she told the BBC, “I was repeatedly asked about my children and I repeatedly made it clear that I did not want this in any way a feature of the campaign.” That is such a dishonest attempt to rewrite her interview that it casts only further doubts on her qualification for high office.

We have our disagreements with Ms Leadsom’s policies, on Europe and gay rights in particular, but we invite the 150,000 members of the Conservative Party who will make the final choice between Ms May and Ms Leadsom to consider whether the latter is really ready to go straight from a junior ministry to the top job.

The presentation of her work in the City in her CV crossed the line between “best gloss” and misleading, and her refusal so far to publish her tax returns suggests that she is not entirely comfortable with the level of scrutiny that – whatever one thinks of it – goes with the job of prime minister these days.

The people of Britain are entitled to know what kind of people aspire to lead them. And that includes their life story and their family background. But we are progressing as a nation to a future in which gender, sexuality and whether or not one has children will not be regarded as relevant to judging leadership.

For that reason – if no other – we welcome Angela Eagle’s decision to challenge Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership of the Labour Party. It could mean that the two main parties in the UK and the three main parties in Scotland would be led by women, all of them judged on their ability to lead regardless of gender, sexuality and parenthood.

When we say we hope that Ms Leadsom fails in her campaign to become Conservative Party leader and prime minister, we do so not because she is a woman and a mother but because, among other things, that outcome would put progress into reverse.