Say what you like about Therese Coffey as a politician – but leave her body shape out of it

Who cares what her body looks like? The policies she supports and her voting record as a member of parliament are the only things that matter

Sometimes it seems that the majority of Tory MPs – Liz Truss’s new “cabinet of chums” is an excellent example – are basically the Sith in Star Wars. Their decisions and their values make life demonstrably worse for the poor and vulnerable and for ordinary people in Britain.

Perhaps because they too often demonstrate cartoonish levels of evil – rapturous cheering after blocking a pay rise for nurses, anyone? – that the rest of us, and not just the Jedi among us, but the ordinary families just trying to scratch a living on Tatooine, too, need to be better.

And this is one of the reasons why seeing Twitter teeming with fatphobic and body-shaming remarks about the new health secretary, Therese Coffey, is so disappointing.

There are many, many valid reasons to criticise Coffey as a politician. Her body shape shouldn’t come into it. It’s irrelevant – and yes, even as health secretary. Weight isn’t the most important indicator of health, and unless you’re her doctor, you shouldn’t feel qualified to make a judgement. People can enjoy good health across a wide range of weights, all bodies are different – and all bodies deserve respect.

What doesn’t deserve respect, however, is Coffey’s undeniably Sith-like voting record and ministerial contributions – and the impact they have on the UK. Just one example is her suggestion, as work and pensions secretary, that people on universal credit should just work more hours to make up for her government slashing their payments by £20 a week in the single largest reduction in welfare for many decades.

Britain’s work and pensions secretary should probably have a basic understanding of how a welfare payment that supports 2.3 million people in the UK actually operates. If you work more hours while receiving universal credit, those extra earnings are tapered against the benefit payment. So working another two hours to earn £20 more per week means your UC would drop – by as much as £12.50. And that’s even assuming that you’re doing a job that pays £10 an hour.

Then there’s Coffey’s disturbing refusal to publish official reports into the Department of Work and Pensions’ handling of vulnerable claimants, despite her predecessor promising transparency. We still don’t know, because this information has been withheld, how many disabled people have died in Britain while waiting for a decision on – or after being denied – benefits.

As health secretary, we should be most worried about Coffey’s out-of-step views on abortion, and her previous votes against extending access to abortion care, in Northern Ireland and in the form of at-home treatment. In 2010, backbencher Coffey introduced a motion in parliament calling for "mental health assessments" for women seeking to terminate pregnancies.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service called Coffey’s record on abortion rights “deeply concerning”. Although she has insisted that she’s not “seeking to undo any aspects of abortion laws”, the fact that she is even having to address this – at a time when women’s bodily autonomy is under threat globally, particularly in the US thanks to the reversal of Roe v Wade – should be a red flag.

Who is Therese Coffey? Well, she has consistently voted for a stricter asylum system, for the slashing of benefits, against measures to combat the climate crisis and almost always for more restrictions on trade union activity. Her regressive and at times inhumane voting record proves that she is, quite frankly, a danger to vast swathes of the British people.

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This is what she must be held to account for – not her body shape. Fatphobia is too often still viewed as a socially acceptable prejudice, and an easy way to belittle and tear down others. Just look at the treatment of John Prescott, “the Fat Controller”, particularly when he revealed his 20-year struggle with bulimia. Trevor Kavanagh of The Sun rubbished Prescott’s diagnosis, saying the former deputy PM was “more likely just a greedy incompetent, who gobbled every treat going”. The Mail condemed his “greed”, calling the admission “frivolous, attention-seeking, self-victimising and somewhat hypocritical”.

Please tell me we can, as a society, move on from this sort of shameful bullying? It’s prejudice, pure and simple. In opposing or criticising Tories like Therese Coffey, it is unacceptable to rely on body-shaming or fatphobic language.

In the eternal wisdom of Michelle Obama, “when they go low, we go high”. We all fall short of this sometimes, particularly in moments of anger or despair. But by focussing on Coffey’s weight, making pig jibes or discussing her “ugliness”, we descend into the same toxic slurry that so much right-wing nastiness thrives in – a place where it’s OK to mock difference, or switch off our capacity for compassion.

Who cares what her body looks like? The policies she supports and her voting record as a member of parliament are the only things that matter.