A Tory minister has been branded “ignorant” for joking “some little man in China” might be listening to him and his wife.
Mark Spencer - who is already being investigated over alleged comments about an MP’s Muslim faith, which he denies - made the remark as he tried to downplay security concerns over the Home Secretary.
Suella Braverman quit after using her personal e-mail account to send a market-sensitive document to two people outside government - and was then rehired six days later by Rishi Sunak.
But Mr Spencer told Sky News: “We all talk on personal phones don’t we.
“When I ring my wife, maybe there’s some little man in China listening to my conversation between me and my wife.
“You’ve just got to be careful about what information you use on which phone and you get a lot of help and support from the security services on that.”
Labour MPs lashed out with Angela Eagle tweeting the shocked face emoji, Chris Elmore writing “the state of this” and Chris Bryant saying “little man? Honestly?”. Catherine West branded it ‘casual racism’.
Sarah Owen, the first MP of south-east Asian descent, tweeted: “Mark Spencer once again showing his ignorance, on many levels.”
Ms Owen told HuffPost UK: “Clearly government ministers like Mark Spencer do not understand the severity of the now repeated Conservative security breaches.
“No amount of deflecting, even by throwing out the crass and archaic ‘little Chinese man’ trope, will distract us from the fact the PM chose to re-hire Braverman just six days after a ministerial code violation to one of the most sensitive positions of state.”
Twitter user Joseph Gould tweeted: "That’s not just a bad take: that’s a Mark Spencer bad take."
Journalist Will Jordan tweeted: “Casual racism. Lax security. No mandate. Lovely.”
Twitter user Jubbob added: “Lovely bit of casual racism thrown into the dismissal of security protocols. Why do these people hold any power? It's excruciating.”
A Tory MP told ITV News: “‘Little Man in China’ and he is already under an ongoing investigation.”
Mr Spencer has been under inquiry for nearly a year after a Tory MP claimed she lost her job due to her Muslim faith, with ex-PM Boris Johnson kicking the probe down the road.
Former Transport Minister Nusrat Ghani alleged in January that a whip had told her “Muslimness was raised as an issue” and that her “Muslim woman minister status was making colleagues feel uncomfortable”.
Mr Spencer, then-the Chief Whip, later named himself as the minister she spoke to, but he said the claims were "completely false" and "defamatory."
The Prime Minister ordered his ethics chief to conduct an inquiry - but Lord Geidt then resigned in the summer in a clash with the PM. No10 have said he’ll be replaced “shortly”.
Asked the progress of the investigation today, Mr Spencer told Sky: “The honest truth is I don’t know. I’m waiting for that report to come out.
“Obviously we’ve had quite a lot of turmoil in the system. My understanding is Lord Geidt was very close to coming forward. I’m absolutely desperate for that report to come out.
“It is very very very frustrating for me to be honest because obviously I know I’m completely innocent. I just want them to come forward with that report and say, ‘there we go’.”
Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from Labour to sack Ms Braverman after it emerged it took hours for her to raise her security breach with the Cabinet Secretary.
Mr Spencer today insisted she “made a mistake” but accepted ministers get "quite a lot of briefing" from the security services on "what to do and what not to do".
Asked if he uses his Government phone for personal business, he told Sky News: "I do not, no."
He added: "You do get quite a lot of briefing from the security services on what to do and what not to do. So, you know, it's quite important to get that right.
"I don't want to comment too much on it because, of course, what I don't want to do is tell the world exactly what that briefing says.
“But you do get a lot of support when you become a Government minister on what is appropriate and inappropriate as a Government minister.”
Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said Suella Braverman "can't keep sending other ministers into Parliament to bat for her", adding she needs to be able to answer "basic" questions.
Ms Cooper told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "There is a blunt immediate question, which is how many other security breaches have there been? How many other security lapses has she been involved in? And that's the most important question.
"There's obviously a big question about what Cabinet Office and Cabinet Secretary advice Rishi Sunak ignored when appointing her, and also there are still these real discrepancies about the account that she's given about at what point she told the Cabinet Office, at what point she didn’t.
“And the reason that matters is because Rishi Sunak said he promised a Government of integrity, professionalism and accountability. At the moment, we're not seeing any of those.”
