Liz Kendall has attacked the Mail on Sunday for asking about her weight in an interview. The Labour leadership contender said it was “unbelievable” that women in politics were subjected to such different scrutiny compared with men.
Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, Kendall asked: “Can you imagine the Mail on Sunday asking the weight of the prime minister, George Osborne or any other leading politician?
“I just think it’s unbelievable that in the 21st century women still get asked such very, very different questions from men,” said the MP for Leicester West and shadow care minister. “I cannot wait for a world when women are judged the same as men and not by those kinds of questions.”
The interview in the Mail on Sunday, conducted by the newspaper’s political editor, Simon Walters, describes Kendall as “a power-dressing Blairite” who had the torch of Blairism “thrust into her elegant hand” when Chuka Umunna withdrew from the leadership race.
The article says the politician maintains her “lithe figure” by jogging 20 miles a week and wears clothes from LK Bennett and Reiss, which are said to be favourites of the Duchess of Cambridge.
It adds: “Slinky brunette Liz, or Elizabeth Louise, to give her full royal-sounding Christian names, looks as good in them as slinky brunette Kate. In fact she looks the same weight as the Duchess – about 8st – though when I ask she slaps me down with a raucous ‘f***off!’, adding quickly: ‘Don’t print that.’”
