A female Tory vice-chairman has compared ‘puritanical’ attitudes to sexual harassment with passing ‘fads’ such as fashionable wristbands.
Kemi Badenoch, who was appointed last week, said there had been a generational change in what is seen as appropriate behaviour.
Her comments come after Westminster has been rocked by the sexual harassment scandal that saw Sir Michael Fallon and Damian Green forced out of their Cabinet jobs.
Kemi Badenoch, who was appointed last week, said there had been a generational change in what is seen as appropriate behaviour
Mrs Badenoch, 38, elected as MP for Saffron Walden last year, said: ‘Attitudes that we thought were quite conservative are now seen as being liberal.
‘When I look at a lot of the stuff that you see on social media about how – I think it’s a generational thing as well – younger people look at appropriate behaviours and what is a sexual advance, what is sexual harassment and so on.
‘To me, it’s becoming a lot more puritanical than anything I ever saw in my 20s or in my teens.’
In the interview with The House magazine, she added: ‘I don’t know whether it’s just a fad where people are saying these things and then they’ll move on to something else.’
Brexit-supporting Mrs Badenoch said: ‘I’ve seen these sort of fits and seizures where everybody is interested in something and then they move on. When I first got into politics, this is 2005, there was Live Aid… and that was what everybody was talking about.
But in remarks that contrast to Mrs Badenoch’s, former Tory researcher Teresa Fitzherbert (pictured) yesterday said she was nicknamed ‘big t**s’ by an MP as she hit out at the ‘sleaze and casual sexism’ rife in Westminster
‘It was fashionable, they wore the bracelets, they went to the concert. I don’t know whether this is something like that, or whether this is something more profound and long lasting.’
Mrs Badenoch, who was born in London but raised in Nigeria, wowed the Tory faithful when she introduced Theresa May at last year’s party conference.
But in remarks that contrast to Mrs Badenoch’s, a former Tory researcher yesterday said she was nicknamed ‘big t**s’ by an MP as she hit out at the ‘sleaze and casual sexism’ rife in Westminster.
Teresa Fitzherbert said politicians harassed and bullied female aides – making sexual jokes and reducing women starting out their careers to tears. She said one woman lost her hair through stress, while another female staffer was told by an MP to take the stairs everywhere ‘because he thought she was overweight’.
Miss Fitzherbert worked for former Tory minister Mark Garnier, who hit headlines after it emerged he called his secretary ‘sugar t**s’ and got her to buy him a sex toy. But she said Mr Garnier was a good and ‘thoughtful’ boss to her and was not the politician who had given her the nickname.
Writing in Harper’s Bazaar magazine, where she now works, Miss Fitzherbert said: ‘‘I would come home every day with a fresh anecdote: one MP referred to me as “big t**s” behind my back; another introduced their new, male researcher as “good, but his breasts aren’t as nice as the last one’s”.’
She said hot-headed politicians would smash things in anger and that Parliament’s subsidised bars were the setting of frequent ‘drunken punch-ups’ and illicit affairs.