Jeremy Corbyn must make his shadow chancellor apologise for associating himself with a "foul campaign" to lynch a minister, Iain Duncan Smith has said.
The Work and Pensions Secretary insisted John McDonnell must recognise he was in the wrong to repeat comments made by activists against then employment minister Esther McVey, who lost her seat in May's general election.
The Cabinet minister challenged Labour leader Mr Corbyn to put into action his desire for a new politics which is women-friendly by ensuring Mr McDonnell says sorry.
The Daily Mail reported last year that Mr McDonnell repeated comments about Ms McVey during a comedy night attended by left-wing activists and fellow Labour politicians, which had been organised by the Stop The War Coalition on Remembrance Sunday.
He reportedly said: "I was up in Liverpool a fortnight ago where Alec McFadden, one of our (union) organisers, launched the Sack Esther McVey Day on her birthday.
"I spoke at a packed public meeting ... there was a whole group in the audience that completely kicked off quite critical of the whole concept, because they were arguing 'Why we are sacking her. Why aren't we lynching the bastard?'"
Mr McDonnell has previously rejected requests to apologise to Ms McVey, noting he had reported statements made at a public meeting and not agreed with them.
Speaking at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Mr Duncan Smith criticised the "hatred" which he claimed is now part of the Labour Party - in a nod to the protests outside the convention centre.
Highlighting what happened to Ms McVey, he said: "Given all that bile and horridness, I suppose, going on outside Esther had to put up with the most appalling campaign against her.
"It was violent, it incited violence and, worse, it incited violence against women.
"Esther put up with that and only just lost at the last election. I want to say that in politics today there should be no room for that kind of nastiness and foul abuse.
"One person associated themselves with that - John McDonnell, who is now the shadow chancellor.
"So I have a little challenge for Mr Corbyn - you talk about a new politics, a new politics that is particularly friendly to women and I absolutely support that and agree with that. There's no room for that nasty bile that goes on.
"But I want to say to him that his shadow chancellor now needs to recognise that in associating himself with that foul campaign he did something wrong. He needs to apologise.
"So Mr Corbyn, get him to apologise and now we can reset the balance."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel