Amber Rudd hits out Boris Johnson for not promoting enough women and using anti-female language - as she blasts Commons 'boys' club'

• Former home secretary accuses PM of using language unsuitable for female ears
• Says he has 'language which he's quite rightly nervous using in front of women'
• She believes that under PM, Tories have gone 'backwards' in promoting women
• Resigned from Mr Johnson's cabinet in 2019 and later stepped down as Tory MP

Former home secretary Amber Rudd has hit out at Boris Johnson for not promoting enough women and for using language unsuitable for female ears.

In an interview she accused the Prime Minister of having a 'sort of language which he's quite rightly nervous using in front of women'.

She told the Institute for Government think-tank she believes that under Mr Johnson, the Tories have gone 'backwards' in promoting women.

And she said Parliament still allows a 'boys' club type behaviour'. Miss Rudd resigned from Mr Johnson's cabinet in 2019 and later stepped down as a Tory MP.

She said: 'I fear that it's going backwards a bit at the moment because unless you have the leadership really making an effort to ensure that women are promoted as equals, all the time - not just because, oh, let's promote the women, we forgot about the women - it's going to be a problem.

'I see that in Boris Johnson, I'm afraid. Even though I don't dislike him at all.

'He's come from that establishment group. And also, he has that sort of language, which he's quite rightly nervous of using in front of women.'

The former home secretary added: 'There is a kind of boys' club type behaviour in Parliament because it is still more like a public school or a university club than anywhere else you'll ever go.'

She said she had to resign over the Windrush scandal, saying: 'The fact that the Home Office did not know what was going on required the resignation of the Home Secretary.'

Former Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom also described how her relationship with ex-Speaker John Bercow deteriorated.

'It reached a point where I had to take someone with me, because of the level of vitriol in those meetings,' she said.

'And he, likewise, said he needed to have someone there, because apparently I was extraordinarily difficult.'