The Independent’s Mary Ann Sieghart has joined in the ongoing debate about women hacks in Westminster. Guido was on about this last week, with the Guardian and Telegraph following up on the issue. Sieghart claims:

“It took years of campaigning for childcare to be seen as a mainstream political issue rather than a private matter for parents. That was because politicians didn’t think it was important and nor did political editors. They were, on the whole, workaholic men with wives at home.”

Which hasn’t gone down very well with those same male political editors:

As I was stuffing porridge into my 5-year-old this morning I learnt from @MASieghart that male political editors don't "get" childcare.

— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) January 17, 2013

@jameschappers @GuidoFawkes @MASieghart i'd like to have read it, but too busy changing two pairs of nappies 1st thing this am (as daily).

— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) January 17, 2013

Guido was particularly amused by the suggestion that Mary Ann wasn’t very happy with Andrew Neil and the BBC:

“I had the uncomfortable feeling all the way through that I was being forced to play second fiddle, but it wasn’t till I watched the programme back on iPlayer that I realised why. The presenter, Andrew Neil, had gone to Danny first with every single question and had often given him, but not me, the chance of a follow-up.”

If her choice of outfits for Brillo’s show was anything to go by , she can’t have been that cheesed off…