LEADING Labour woman Janet Anderson caused a sex storm today by suggesting women will have more sex if Tony Blair runs the country.

The astonishing claim was rapidly repudiated by the party leadership.

And one Tory MP in the North-West predicted the comments could cost Mrs Anderson the Rossendale and Darwen seat which she won by just 120 votes.

In an interview in the Daily Telegraph today Mrs Anderson, who is shadow minister for women, said that women's attitude to sex was changing fast.

She said: "Women are just as open about sex now as men. Men and women now behave similarly." Mrs Anderson denied that men were biologically more promiscuous than women. "It's all about social conditioning, not biology," she said. "Things will change even more.

"Under Labour women will become more promiscuous. That's an election pledge."

Mrs Anderson also said women were right to buy magazines with pictures of naked men if they wanted to and said she might attend a male strip show. She said: "If women are sex objects, men must be too. Male bodies are just as aesthetically pleasing as women's."

Mrs Anderson also defends Labour's women-only shortlists, describes marriage as a contract and confesses to finding Labour leader Tony Blair attractive.

But a senior party spokesman said: "It is definitely not party policy for women to be more promiscuous under Labour nor does the leadership have a position on male strip shows."

Ribble Valley Tory MP Nigel Evans said: "I don't think this will go down very well with people in her constituency. I think it will help lose her the seat."

Burnley Labour MP Peter Pike said: "I think she was misinterpreted. They were obviously light-hearted comments not meant to be taken seriously."

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