Predators in the Labour ranks

LABOUR faced a series of sexual harassment claims yesterday, with one MP revealing she had to push a councillor away and run when he tried to kiss her.

Cat Smith, the party’s youth affairs spokesman, said it happened when she was an activist. She told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire all parties had a ‘responsibility’ to tackle the problem, and called for Commons measures to protect interns. It came as Labour MP Rupa Huq said she was sexually harassed by an MEP in the 1990s.

Tory ex-minister Esther McVey said any system for misconduct claims should extend to ‘those MPs who go on rallies endorsing the lynching of other MPs’.

At an event three years ago, shadow chancellor John McDonnell recounted a remark in which someone said Miss McVey should be ‘lynched’ over welfare cuts.