Tory MP Louise Mensch has insisted she was joking when she complained in an interview about not having been promoted by the prime minister.
The MP for Corby, who entered Parliament in 2010, told GQ magazine that she did not understand why she had not yet been made a parliamentary private secretary (PPS), the first step on a politicians journey to ministerial office.
"It's kind of annoying. What do I have to do to get promoted over here? Am I being disloyal? I don't know. I need to sit down with my whip and say, 'What do I have to do?'” she told the magazine.
"Every time there is a raft of PPS promotions and my name is not on them, I have to sit down and think, 'What am I doing wrong?'"
However after her comments were reported by the Daily Mirror, Mensch took to Twitter to berate the Labour supporting tabloid for having a sense of humour failure.
In the interview, which will be sale on Thursday, the backbencher who is a member of the high profile Commons culture committee that has been investigating phone hacking, said it was unfair the media often "trivialise a woman politician based on her appearance".
