We can’t joke about fat people – so why is it OK to mock small men?

I’m 5ft 6in, just an inch shorter than our Prime Minister, so when Angela Rayner referred to Rishi Sunak as “a pint-sized loser” in the House of Commons on Wednesday, it did make me roll my eyes.

My dad was from Stratton, a little village on the outskirts of Bude in Cornwall. Stratton’s most famous son is a guy born in the 1600s called Anthony Payne, who grew to be 7ft 4in tall and 32 stone – he was known as “The Cornish Giant”.

My dad, also called Anthony Payne, was named after him – but only reached 5ft 5in with his boots on and was known affectionately by his friends as “little legs”. There’s a huge life-size painting of the giant Anthony (commissioned by Charles II) in Stratton’s local pub, and it always made us laugh when we saw it.

I heard every short joke there is, growing up. It’s just been a part and parcel of my life for as long as I can remember. I was called a “short arse” and “midget” and loads of other names, but it was just a bit of fun between friends. It’s never affected me. I laugh along with people: it’s always best to be in on the joke.

As society has become more PC and woke, and you can’t say this and that, it’s never really bothered me that people still make short jokes.

But that’s the type of person I am. Being short has almost emboldened my character. You have to have the courage to meet the world and be comfortable in your own skin, and then hope that people will love you for who you are, not your size or your appearance.

I was always lucky that I was very sporty. I played rugby at a decent level: I was captain of the school team, played for the county, and also at university. I was a scrum-half – that’s a position where height doesn’t matter. I may have been small but I was tough and quick. If people tried to get under my skin by calling me short, I could let my performance on the field speak for itself.

That said, I’ve got kids now and I hope that my son (who’s nearly 11) is going to be taller than me, because I think that the world is a cruel place. You don’t know how young children’s mental health could be affected by bullying. Not everyone is resilient – it can be very damaging, especially if you have low self-confidence.

My son is quite slight and small, but thankfully he’s definitely not the smallest in his class, or his football team. I’m hopeful he’ll be a good two or three inches taller than me. He’s got height on his mother’s side: his grandfather is 6ft, his uncle is 6ft 5in. My wife is my height, which is quite tall for a woman, so maybe he’ll get lucky!

I never had problems dating because of my size. Though I do remember at university when I was chatting up my then girlfriend – who was a good few inches taller than me –  and one of my mates threw the Yellow Pages from across the bar at me. He did it to get a laugh out of everybody, and I laughed along.

It is odd that it’s somehow fine for Rayner to say “pint-sized” but if she’d called someone fat, people would be up in arms. Her comments were followed by James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, joking that Sunak would need to “stand on his wallet” to “look me in the eye”.

This feels like the last acceptable form of mockery.

“Pint-sized” is quite jovial but it’s still derogatory. Rayner knows exactly what she’s doing using that terminology – she can say “Oh, it’s just a joke”, but he might not find it funny, nor other people hearing it. It’s different when it’s joshing between friends. I do think what she said is nasty – even though Cleverly’s comments were clearly not intended in the same vein.

I get particularly frustrated when people talk about “small man syndrome”. I don’t get it. It’s hurled at you if you’re small and you get angry or frustrated about something, and then you’re assigned this completely different motive based on your size – that you’re trying to be bigger.

There’s no alternative to that for someone who’s a bit on the tall side or overweight, like “fat man syndrome”.

I find it totally alien. I’ve held important jobs but no one who knows me would say I’ve ever acted in a certain way because I’m short.

You definitely can’t accuse Sunak of becoming Prime Minister because he’s got small man syndrome. If he’s putting his foot down over something, it’s because he thinks it’s what’s best for the country – not because of his height.

It would be like saying Angela Rayner is “fiery” because she’s ginger. It’s an outdated trope.

I’m not upset by her comments, but I do think they’re complete nonsense. Ironically, it makes her look small-minded.