Debate on women - not during lunch please!

Around 2.30pm in the Commons today, MPs were debating the impact of Government policies on women.

Probably a subject of interest to most MPs you would have thought.

But on the Tory benches sat just two men, Edward Timpson being one of them.

The two-man turn-out at this stage of the debate is unlikely to have impressed the stern-looking equalities minister Theresa May on the frontbench or Treasury minister Justine Greening sitting next to her.

A few more male Labour MPs were present, but only half a dozen including Tom Watson. Some seemed in boisterous mood after what presumably was a good lunch - where many of their colleagues probably could still be found.

But the female MPs were locked in a fierce battle, with Labour mocking newly-wed Louise Mensch (better known as Louise Bagshawe) for claiming the Lib-Con coalition is standing up for women on all issues.

 

Nicholas Cecil