Labour’s newest and youngest MP, Keir Mather, is fresh out of Oxford – and on a path to the very top of his party. But the 25-year-old, who overturned a 20,000-vote Tory majority to win the Selby and Ainsty by-election last month, shares more than his first name with his party leader and boss, Keir Starmer.

Starmer has spent some time getting himself into a muddle on a simple question: what is a woman? Now, it seems, ‘baby’ of the house of Commons Mather is determined to follow in Starmer’s footsteps. In an interview with the Times, Mather was cagey on that question – and his response to whether he really did call Germaine Greer ‘an abhorrent transphobe’ was also hardly reassuring:

‘It’s half a decade ago now. The debate was extremely hot; I can’t remember the context.’

Mr S thought it might be helpful to offer Mather a reminder of events. Then-undergraduate student Mather lashed out at Greer after the academic was invited to the Oxford Union in 2018. This is a woman, he said at the time, who has made ‘dehumanising and downright dangerous comments about transgender women’.

So might Mather like to reconsider what he said? It doesn’t seem likely:

‘What I said is on the record. I really strongly disagree with her outlook and approach to the issue.’

Given that many people – including, no doubt, some of Mather’s constituents – share Greer’s views on the subject of gender, perhaps he might soon change his tune.