Former journalist turned Government Minister Toby Young said he resigned from the Board of the Office for Students because his appointment had become a “distraction”.

But, Twitter posts in recent years, since deleted, were slammed as crude and sexist and led to members of the Labour Party to call for his dismissal.

One audience member also took aim at Labour for their “hypocrisy”.

He said: “So, Labour and the Tories can trade barbs with each other all they want on who said what and everyone has got as much ammunition as they want.

“The hypocrisy of the Labour Party when they come back and say ‘Jared O’Mara is just suspended but Toby Young should be sacked’.

“There are people in Sheffield now who don’t have a voice in Parliament because the Labour Party just won’t do anything. They need to take action and be consistent in dealing out their outrage.”

Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam, Jared O’Mara, was suspended from the Labour Party after it was discovered he had allegedly made homophobic and sexist comments on social media before he became an MP.

Jared O’Mara has also caused controversy by not turning up to MP surgeries to see his constituents.

An audience member on Question Time asked: “With the resignation of Toby Young are we giving into mob rule by a snowflake generation?”

The former editor of The Mirror, Piers Morgan, replied: “He said some distasteful things, no one is denying that. Dawn and Angela Rayner, amongst others, led a charge to get him sacked.

“So they got his scalp. Toby Young is off this little quango, nobody had heard much about it anyway - no one had really heard about Toby Young before this week, probably.

“What it raises to me, is the question of hypocrisy, double standards and consistency.”

Mr Morgan continued: “He is still a Labour MP, he hasn’t been sacked. He posted far worse stuff and when it all came out and Angela Rayner said ‘I stand by this guy, this is in the past, he said sorry and we need to move on’.

“I think we are giving into mob rule and it does not apply the same standards to the Labour side that it does to the likes of Toby Young who happens to be a Tory.”

But Shadow Women and Equalities Minister, Dawn Butler, rebuked Piers Morgan’s statements forcefully.

Ms Butler said: “I am not in favour of someone who talks about dressing as a woman and going to gay clubs to molest lesbians and writing about it.

“Or, laughing about anal rape of women, or talking about eugenics and weeding out disabled people or complaining that schools have ramps so disabled people can get an education - that is not suitable criteria for someone to be appointed to a Government position.”

Comedian Nish Kumar described Toby Young attending a eugenics conference at UCL as some “dark, Nazi stuff man” and that the ideology has its history in “ancestral fascism”. But, it should be noted that the left-wing group The Fabian Society also spoke of favour of eugenics in the early 20th century.

But Lawyer Gina Miller said she did not think Mr Young should have held a public position.

She said: “I think the scoring of political points has got to stop. We have got to find a way to have adult conversations when it comes to important matters.

“This is serious, you cannot have someone in public office behaving like this and I don’t know how incompetent the screening process must have been to let him into that position.

“This isn’t just about women, it is about anyone. You have no right to degrade another person. I’m sorry, but you don’t.”