A FRUSTRATED Angela Rayner has lashed out at “perverted smears” from those she refers to as “Boris Johnson’s cheerleaders” following a sexist attack on the deputy Labour leader on Sunday.

Ms Rayner was left fuming after an anonymous Tory accused her of using a so-called “Basic Instinct ploy” to “distract” Boris Johnson at the dispatch box during their Prime Minister’s Questions exchange (PMQs). According to an anonymous MP quoted in a Sunday newspaper article, the Labour firebrand enjoyed “crossing and uncrossing her legs” during PMQs in an attempt to throw Mr Johnson “off his stride.”

During the weekly Commons clashes, Ms Rayner frequently sits alongside Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and opposite the Prime Minister.

She has also filled in for Sir Keir at Prime Minister’s Questions when he was forced to self-isolate due to coronavirus.

Ms Rayner lashed out at the “lies” being briefed about her in a series of tweets.

The Ashton-under-Lyne MP said: “Boris Johnson’s cheerleaders have resorted to spreading desperate, perverted smears in their doomed attempts to save his skin.

“They know exactly what they are doing. The lies they are telling.”

She said Mr Johnson and his backers “clearly have a big problem with women in public life” and that they “should be ashamed of themselves”.