Labour’s Emily Thornberry accused Sky News presenter Dermot Murnaghan of sexism during an extraordinary argument live on TV today.
The Shadow Foreign Secretary lost her temper after Mr Murnaghan asked her to name her foreign politicians.
After failing to name French Foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault or even answer what gender South Korean President Park Geun-hye is, Ms Thornberry lashed out at Mr Murnaghan for his ‘patronising’ questions and claimed he did not ask similar questions of male politicians.
Mr Murnaghan insisted the questions were relevant to her job, which also includes shadowing the new Brexit department.
But an angry Ms Thornberry shot back: ‘Let’s take this off air because I’ve got a lot to say to you and I don’t think a lot of it ought to be broadcast.’
The remarkable exchange came at the end of a tetchy interview.
When asked whether she could name the French Foreign minister Mr Ayrault, Ms Thornberry said: ‘Don’t start pub-quizing me, Dermot. Don’t start pub quizzing me.’
After Mr Murnhaghan asked again, she said: ‘No, and I’m not going to start answering your questions on this. Do you know what, what really upsets me about your attitude to me, is you do this with me. I don’t remember you doing it with anybody else, you know.
‘Have you done it with David Davis, do Sky journalists have a go at Boris Johnson on this basis, how about Liam Fox? Did you do pub quizzes with them. I mean honestly, really, can we talk about some serious stuff?
Ms Thornberry suggested Mr Murnaghan ask her questions about Syria or North Korea, saying: ‘You really want to spend this time pub quizzing me? What’s with you… Sunday morning, honestly.’
She was later asked if she knew who the South Korean president is. An increasingly frustrated Ms Thornberry said: ‘If you want me to go with you to a pub tonight and we can do a pub quiz tonight, let’s do it.’
Then asked if she knew the president’s gender, she said: ‘I’m not getting drawn by you into this nonsense.’
Ms Thornberry – visibly furious with Mr Murnaghan for his line of questioning – returned to the argument at the end of the interview when she was asked about Labour’s recent problems with anti-Semitism.
She said: ‘There is always more to be done [about anti-Semitism in Labour], there is always more to be done, and do you know what there is certainly a lot more to be done by the Tories and I certainly think sometimes, when it comes to sexism, some Sky presenters need to look at themselves too.
‘I really do, it really upsets me that every time I come on here you do another pub quiz with me, because you do not do it with anyone else and I do think that it is patronising.’
But Mr Murnaghan told her: ‘It’s not because you’re the Shadow Foreign Secretary and this was about the French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault ,who Boris Johnson met now several times.’
It is the latest in a long line of headline-grabbing comments Ms Thornberry has made.
The gaffe-prone Labour MP was sacked from Ed Miliband’s Shadow Cabinet in 2014 after being accused of snobbery when she tweeted a picture of a house with three England flags and a white van parked in the drive during the Rochester by-election. She said she had ‘never seen anything like it’.
It led to days of negative headlines for the Labour party just months before the 2015 general election and helped opponents brand the party out of touch with its traditional voters.
She returned to the Labour frontbench under Jeremy Corbyn, a close friend.
But she again landed herself into trouble soon after being appointed Shadow Defence Secretary when she boasted she had once held a senior honorary rank in the Armed Forces while working as a legal representative at military court hearings.
The Ministry of Defence dismissed her claim, insisting there was no record of Ms Thornberry, or any other civilian legal representative, being given honorary rank in respect of their work as a barrister or a solicitor.
And despite being in charge of Labour’s defence brief at the time, she appeared not to know the meaning of ‘Defcon One’ – the term for imminent nuclear war.
During an internal Labour meeting on the party’s review of Britain’s Trident nuclear submarines, she shocked aides by asking: ‘Can someone explain Defcon One and Two to me? I’ve only ever seen it in films.’
Ms Thornberry was also caught on camera mouthing ‘b*****cks’ at David Cameron during Prime Minister’s Questions earlier this year.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3783925/Let-s-air-Shadow-Foreign-Secretary-Emily-Thornberry-accuses-Sky-News-presenter-sexism-asked-French-foreign-minister.html#ixzz4K34FtE6f
ResidentEvil7 3 years, 4 months ago.
