SEXISM, misogyny and pornography. Just another working week at Westminster. It was almost five years ago that claims of bullying were made in the UK Parliament in the wake of the #MeToo movement, which led to ministerial resignations and a shake-up in how “Pestminster,” as it was dubbed, dealt with grievances.

The House of Commons has had a testosterone-charged atmosphere for many decades because men have dominated the place. The increase in the number of female MPs and the change to more family-friendly working hours has helped to civilise it. However, despite some progress, due largely to women feeling more able to speak out, this week has shown an undercurrent of bad culture continues to exist.

At a packed meeting of Tory MPs to discuss this, there was shock at the allegations that were made.

One backbencher described it as “like a blood-letting,” explaining: “Everybody was sharing awful stories of what had happened to them in the Commons at the hands of male MPs.”

She added Chris Heaton-Harris, the Chief Whip, hadn’t been expecting it and “looked knocked for six”.

The most shocking claims came from two women MPs, one a minister, against a male colleague seen on two occasions, one in the Commons chamber, ogling pornography on his mobile phone. The brazen stupidity and offensiveness of it is breath-taking.

Heaton-Harris has referred the matter to Westminster’s independent complaints and grievance system and will, in light of its findings, take “appropriate action”. Which at the very least will mean kicking the culprit out of the parliamentary party and could see him be expelled from Parliament.

However, only witnesses can make a complaint to the grievances scheme; if they don’t, there will be no investigation. But if there is one, the process will seek to keep the name of the alleged offender secret. Good luck with that one.

A name is already ricocheting around the Commons and could well end up in a newspaper this weekend. Labour leader Keir Starmer urged Tory HQ to “take action now”.

The indignation was cross-party. Suella Braverman, England’s Attorney General, let rip, saying a “very small minority” of male MPs “behave like animals” and suggested the colleague who had been caught watching porn should be removed from Parliament for his “absolutely reprehensible” behaviour.

Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, had some sage advice for all MPs: “Avoid the bars...finish your day’s work and go home.”

The meeting of the Tory 2022 group, whose aim is to achieve equal gender representation, came amid reports a startling number of MPs – some 56 and said to include three Cabinet ministers – are facing allegations of sexual misconduct and have been referred to the grievances system.

As Parliament was prorogued yesterday ahead of the May 10 State Opening, MPs will have a lot to reflect upon. Not least the treatment of Angela Rayner.

The deputy Labour leader became the latest victim of what Starmer branded “rank sexism and rank misogyny”.

The Commons terrace and bar have been the midwife to many a contentious political story. The mixture of late night gossip and alcohol has proved a heady cocktail and ready supplier of newspaper headlines over decades.

Its latest centred on a claim, published in that bastion of righteousness, the Mail on Sunday, about how a Conservative MP claimed Rayner, during PMQs, tried to put Boris “off his stride” by crossing and uncrossing her legs, emulating Sharon Stone in the Hollywood film Basic Instinct.

“She knows she can’t compete with Boris’s Oxford Union debating training,” the Tory MP told the newspaper, “but she has other skills which he lacks. She has admitted as much when enjoying drinks with us on the terrace.”

So, the insult involved not just gender but class too; Rayner left her comprehensive school at 16 without any qualifications after becoming pregnant. Rising to the top of the Labour Party has been, therefore, a tremendous achievement.

Faced with a torrent of condemnation, the Mail hunkered down and declined to comment but when Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, called its editor to a meeting in his headmaster’s office the newspaper cried foul or, rather, press freedom.

The deflection technique worked with journalists and politicians rallying to the standard, including ex-hack Boris Johnson, who, Downing Street said was “uncomfortable” with politicians summoning journalists to explain their stories.

However, having tried to shift the focus of the row from misogyny to press freedom, the Mail didn’t help its cause by suggesting Rayner had been disingenuous, having previously laughed off the Stone analogy weeks before in a light-hearted podcast.

But she hit back. “I said…in January the sexist film parody about me was misogynistic and it still is now. As women, we sometimes try to brush aside the sexism we face but that doesn’t make it OK. The Mail implies I somehow enjoy being subjected to sexist slurs. I don’t. They are mortifying and deeply hurtful,” declared the deputy Labour leader.

However, Labour too has come under an uncomfortable spotlight after a female MP accused a Shadow Cabinet member of inappropriate comments by claiming she was a “secret weapon” because men wanted to sleep with her.

Starmer expressed deep concern and pledged any complaint would be taken “extremely seriously”.

Yesterday, his colleague, Liam Byrne, a former Cabinet minister, apologised after being found to have bullied an ex-member of staff by ostracising them. He now faces a two-day suspension from the Commons.

Nonetheless, the Rayner episode, compounded by the porn claims against a Tory MP and coming within the context of the controversy swirling around the Conservative leadership over partygate and the cost-of-living crisis, might well have a political impact come May 5.

The sexism row has rightly elicited sympathy for a Government opponent; an own-goal in any politician’s book. The assertive Manchester MP has only benefited from the controversy, however much the Mail has tried to belittle her.

If Labour do well at the local elections, some might regard it as poetic justice. Rayner may, after all, have the last laugh.