Backbench Conservative MPs were urged to deflect criticism from Toby Young’s appointment to the board of the university regulator by attacking Labour, according to a leaked briefing seen by the Guardian.

The outspoken rightwing columnist’s appointment as a director of the Office for Students, which is meant to help uphold standards at universities as tuition fees rise, has sparked a wave of criticism.

After Dawn Butler, the shadow equalities minister, tabled an urgent question in the House of Commons over the appointment, backbench Tory MPs were given a handout which set out “key messages” and suggested “interventions” they could make in the debate.



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They were asked to claim it was “hypocritical” of Labour to criticise Young’s appointment when “they [Labour] have shown themselves willing to excuse a wide range of sexist, racist and abusive comments among their own ranks”.

It listed a series of examples, including “the scandalous way Momentum and Labour activists threatened and intimidated candidates from other parties during last year’s general election”, claims of rising antisemitism in Labour, and party activists’ booing of the BBC political editor, Laura Kuenssberg.

Potential Labour leadership candidates Angela Rayner and Emily Thornberry were singled out for criticism, underlining the fact the Tories are keen to train their fire on Jeremy Corbyn’s key allies.

In the debate, the universities minister, Jo Johnson, robustly defended the controversial appointment, stating “we want to encourage Mr Young to develop the best sides of his personality”.

“The opposition would have us believe [Young] is not qualified or suitable to be on the board,” Johnson said. “Yes, Mr Young is not a university insider, but a board made up of only university insiders would be hard pressed to provide the scrutiny and challenge to the sector that students and taxpayers deserve.”

Johnson said Young’s experience as founder of West London free school and director of the New Schools Network would be important for the new universities regulator. He said Young had apologised for his comments, “some of which go back to the 1980s”, and urged MPs to judge him by his actions rather than his words.

Play Video 1:03 Theresa May on Toby Young: 'I'm not impressed by those comments' – video

The Tory document also spelled out Young’s achievements in the creation of free schools in west London. It asked Tory backbenchers to point out that many of the tweets and comments for which he has been attacked, which include repeated references to women’s breasts, are “5, 10 or in some cases over 20 years old”, and that he has “expressed sincere regret, and undertaken that they will not be repeated”.

When one of Young’s incendiary tweets was read out to him, Johnson said: “I recognise that many of the tweets have been obnoxious and repellant in many ways, but it is also important to recognise that tweet was probably eight or nine years old, since which time Mr Young has been on something of a developmental journey. It is possible that there is a capacity for reform, and we want to encourage Mr Young to develop the best sides of personality.”

Labour MPs, including Lucy Powell, Stella Creasy and Wes Streeting, as well as some Tories including Sarah Wollaston and Robert Halfon, who chairs the education select committee, urged Johnson to rethink the appointment.

Halfon warned the government over “dark” and “dangerous” articles written by Young in the past, and Butler said she had lost her sense of humour if “caustic wit” included making jokes about masturbating over pictures of dying and starving children. “I am flabbergasted, and it’s beyond me how the minister can stand up and support this appointment … it leaves the OfS’s credibility in tatters,” Butler said.

She said there were three areas that urgently needed to be addressed – process, suitability, and merit. “Was due process followed in all cases? Who was the independent assessor because I cannot find that person’s name? Why did the DfE exaggerate Toby Young’s qualifications and suitability for the role?”

Theresa May condemned some of Young’s offensive tweets and comments in an interview with BBC’s Andrew Marron Sunday, but suggested he should be allowed to put them behind him.

Young issued a lengthy statement last week in which he said that some of his previous remarks had been “sophomoric and silly” and that he regretted them.

The urgent question came on the same day that the president of the National Union of Students, Shakira Martin, criticised a lack of diversity on the board of OfS and called for a rethink of the Young appointment.

Martin, who applied but was turned down for a place on the board despite representing the interests of seven million students, said: “It goes without saying that Toby Young’s comments about women, disadvantaged students and disabled people are wholly unacceptable. And beyond this, the board is not sufficiently diverse. That is why his place on the board requires a serious rethink and I have written to the prime minister today to set out my concerns.”