In the past week Penny Mordaunt MP, Secretary of State for International Development and Minister for Women & Equalities and former defence minister, performed (in the opinion of many Mumsnetters) one of the most abysmal Mumsnet webchats ever, now held in perpetuity in the influential website’s digital annals. (I wrote about it here.) The focus of the ensuing disappointment and ire has understandably been on her apparent disregard for sex-based protections and rights for women, and the safeguardng of children of both sexes, and her odd comments about the meaning of ‘mother’. Additionally there remains another nugget buried deep in the motherlode of Mordaunt’s thought-mine of doom, which goes to the heart of her credibility.