ES News email The latest headlines in your inbox twice a day Monday - Friday plus breaking news updates Enter your email address Continue Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in Register with your social account or click here to log in I would like to receive lunchtime headlines Monday - Friday plus breaking news alerts, by email Update newsletter preferences

As Stella Creasy is having her photograph taken, a group of men start wolf-whistling and catcalling at her.

“Eaaa-sy,” the Labour MP for Walthamstow says in a slightly schoolmarmish manner, before turning the joke on them: “It’s your turn in front of the camera next.” The men stop jeering, looking a little sheepish.

The 35-year-old, who joined Parliament after the general election in 2010, seems unflappable — she has a “no mess” manner but with charm. No wonder she is being heralded as a future Labour leader.

That would, of course, make her the first woman to lead the party. So how much is sexism still holding women back in politics? “We have a long way to go in tackling it,” she says. “There is a cultural element about expectations and attitudes ... The House isn’t immune to British society as a whole.”

She thinks the few women who have broken into spheres of influence are now being used as evidence the fight is over: “I think we’ve come 20 per cent of the way towards a more equal society and then we’ve hit a buffer where people think ‘that’s enough now’. We’ve got some women in Parliament, some women in journalism, some women presenters. Rather than being a glass ceiling, it’s become a glass menagerie, where you go, ‘hey, there are some women on boards’, but it’s the same women being circulated.”

It’s not just a numbers game, she adds — more women will benefit both politics and business: “Political decision-making is better when you have a range of views ... and societies that have more women on their boards are more prosperous as well as more egalitarian. It’s win, win.”

She is heavily critical of this week’s reshuffle of the Cabinet: “What a surprise! The number of women in the Cabinet is going down. I don’t agree with them on much but there are lots of impressive women on the Conservative benches — why weren’t they looked at?”

Creasy was selected for her seat on an all-women short-list, a policy she wishes other parties would adopt. “I am proud to have been selected like that — it was harder,” she claims. “The women I was up against were incredibly impressive women. We live in a society where people have stereotypes and frameworks that they use to understand the world — one of the interesting things is how to challenge those, because I see inequalities being perpetuated ... All-women shortlists help deal with an entrenched view of what politicians should be.”

Inevitably, the conversation turns to Louise Mensch’s resignation and its reigniting of the “can women have it all?” debate. Creasy believes that was nonsense. “This wasn’t a debate about women — it’s about trying to manage family commitments,” she argues. “I’ve met Louise, she seems very nice. I disagree with her politically, I don’t write trashy novels and I don’t have children or a partner who lives in America — so I don’t understand the lifestyle she was talking about. But I have lots of male colleagues who have young families and I know it breaks their hearts getting it right to see their kids.”

Creasy does want children one day (she is unmarried but mentions a “HAB” — a husband and boyfriend) and strongly believes Parliament still needs to become more parent-friendly.

Another thing she feels is hindering female advancement in public life is misogynistic abuse online. “The amount of abuse politicians get that is gendered is massively unacceptable. You should see some of the emails and tweets I get sent ... offensive stuff about what people would do to me. And I know I’m not alone in this.” She considers such invective an attempt to stop women expressing opinions but notes that online abuse can escalate too: one man — who wasn’t even local — started turning up at her constituency surgeries.

Creasy doesn’t block online abusers, but after a warning message won’t engage with them further — “even if I can laugh it off, I don’t want to send the message to young women that that is what they should expect for participating.”

I ask if she feels a sense of dread when she checks her phone after doing a television show such as Question Time. She laughs: “It’ll be my mother going ‘your hair looked terrible’.”

I had feared Creasy might be a Lab-bot. Tirelessly on message. Humourless, perhaps. When I found out her Commons nickname — St Ella, apparently — it didn’t exactly alleviate those concerns. But I was wrong. She’s energetic, witty and articulate, and boy, can she talk. A mutual friend tells me Creasy has a gift for karaoke and I reckon she’s among the rare breed of MPs most people would be happy to have a pint with.

She is certainly smart too. After grammar school in Colchester, she read social and political sciences at Cambridge, before studying for a PhD in social psychology at the London School of Economics. Her parents were involved in the Labour Party (her mother Corinna was a head teacher and still talks politics on Twitter, while her father Philip was an opera singer) and she joined herself aged just 15.

This perhaps feeds the common attack on her that she is a “career politician”. A perception not helped by the fact that by 19, she was writing to the Daily Telegraph to scold someone for describing the Fabian Society as packed with “decrepit fossils”. Or the fact that she worked as a researcher in the Commons for three MPs in her twenties.

“It is an easy frame,” she responds. “I have always been involved in social and political campaigning. People will judge you by the contribution you make.”

And she is determined to leave that mark. Her next big battle is putting violence against women on the political agenda, promoting the One Billion Rising campaign in the capital.

“We know that 40 per cent of women in London have experienced harassment on the streets or in public transport,” she says. “We tell women they have to be careful. We don’t challenge men’s expectations about what is acceptable behaviour. And a third of serious case reviews involve domestic violence — we’re not getting the right protection for women in society.”

In a surprisingly un-Leftie way, her argument rests not only on the social damage violence does but on economics too. “It’s like I said about representation. It’s not enough to say ‘this is terrible’, you have to ask: what is the impact of not dealing with these problems? My argument is there is a social and economic cost to not tackling it.”

Her most famous fight so far has been against what she terms “legal loan sharks” — the companies who lend at high interest rates to those who typically can’t get credit elsewhere. She isn’t advocating a cap on interest rates but wants a cap on the total charges these companies can levy, so there is certainty about the maximum debt a borrower can accrue.

This fight has now dragged in Ant and Dec, as one of these companies — Wonga — will sponsor the duo’s ITV show, Red or Black. Creasy thinks the pair’s agent is refusing to pass on her messages.

“I am a fan of Ant and Dec,” she says. “I just also think I’m not doing my job if I don’t ask everyone who can help to change what I am trying to change. As politicians, we deal with accountability all the time, [but] they are being denuded of responsibility. Responsibility is empowerment — so I am trying to empower Ant and Dec.”

Creasy clearly isn’t someone who is easily ignored. So what does she make of talk that she could lead Labour? “You can’t stop people speculating. I am not naïve, some of that banter is part of political life.” And is the St Ella nickname fair? “It makes me laugh. People will write stuff – you just get on with the job.”

That “stuff” included a silly season story last week, where a constituent told Creasy she looks like Celebrity Big Brother contestant Samantha Brick. When I mention this, I expect an arched eyebrow, but I get a guffaw.

“That’s just harsh!” There’s a rare pause. “If people want to make assumptions based on my hair colour or my sex, then more fool them. They’ll only do it the once.”