A pregnant womanSo the PC brigade have got themselves in a tizz after seven-months-pregnant equalities minister Jo Swinson was ‘forced’ to stand at prime minister’s questions this week because all the seats were taken by (male) backbenchers.

‘None of the MPs sitting just feet away offered her a seat,’ lambasts one report. ‘Really shocking lack of manners and decency,’ says another. Had she actually approached them and asked to sit down I’m sure they’d have readily budged up.

It doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone that the poor woman may have spent the morning chained to her desk, ankles swelling and bum numbing, and may actually have welcomed 30 minutes in which to stand and get her circulation going again.

If my memory serves me correctly it is actually in the first few weeks of pregnancy, when it’s too early to tell anyone about the little being you are growing inside, that – dizzy and sickly – one is really in need of a seat.

Where did the idea come from that just because a woman is visibly pregnant she has lost all ability to stand on two feet, and worse, speak up if she can’t? From men observing PMQs by the looks of it. Which is slightly worrying if said men have anything at all to do with running the country…