By DAVID WILCOCK, DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR Published: 15:00 BST, 22 September 2025 | Updated: 15:55 BST, 26 September 2025
A new mum Tory MP accused a Labour rival of being 'patronising' today as they clashed over NHS advice for 'chestfeeding' by trans and non-binary parents.Shivani Raja, who gave birth to her first child, a boy, last month, hit out at Josh Fenton-Glynn after he took issue with her attack on the health service. In an early morning post on X Mrs Raja, 31, posted an image of the NHS website giving advice to 'trans and non-binary' parents on chestfeeding.The Leicester East MP wrote: 'To all the women breastfeeding at 4am with no sleep, no recognition and no consideration by the NHS. 'Cheers to being biologically correct and politically inconvenient.'However Yorkshire MP Mr Fenton-Glynn - himself a father - may have missed her comments about having had no sleep.A few hours later he also took to X to point out she had been looking at the specific advice for trans parents, rather than the main page about breastfeeding, which was clearly labelled as such.'Here is the main breastfeeding page (it took 10 second to google (sic)). No discussion is advanced by sharing inaccurate information,' he added.This went down about as well as might be expected with the new mother, who replied: 'Always nice as a new mother to be patronisingly lectured by a man about my opinion on our National Health Service legitimising ''chestfeeding''.' Shivani Raja, who gave birth to her first child, a boy, last month, hit out at Josh Fenton-Glynn (below) after he took issue with her attack on the health service. A few hours later he also took to X to point out she had been looking at the specific advice for trans parents, rather than the main page about breastfeeding, which was clearly labelled as such. This went down about as well as might be expected with the new motherShe went on to day: 'Last time I checked males AND females have breasts - it's not politically or factually incorrect to say breastfeeding. '''Chestfeeding'' is just pandering to those who are in denial of basic biology.'But Mr Fenton-Glynn press on, accusing her of changing her argument after being challenged.But the Leicester East MP replied: 'Your interpretation of my tweet is one thing - what I meant is another. But you know what they say about assuming… 'To have the women who ARE breastfeeding (including myself) see it reduced down to ‘chestfeeding’ for the sake of pandering is a lack of consideration by the NHS, imo.'
