Mara Carfagna elected into the Chamber of Deputies for Forza Italia, and in the 2008 elections – running as the third candidate from The People of Freedom in the district "Campania 2" – she was reelected. When she first entered parliament Berlusconi jokingly commented that Forza Italia practiced the law of primae noctis; the right of a feudal lord to take the virginity of his female subjects. As a deputy she was secretary of the Commission for Constitutional Affairs, and has been described as a diligent, hard-working parliamentarian. On May 8, 2008 she was appointed Minister for Equal Opportunity, in the fourth
Sutherland's Portrait of Winston Churchill a Labour MP and one of Churchill's critics, called it, "A beautiful work", Lord Hailsham, one of Churchill's Conservative colleagues and a friend, called it "disgusting". The painting was intended to hang in the Houses of Parliament after Churchill's death, but it had been given to Churchill as a personal gift, and he took it away to Chartwell, where it was never displayed. Requests to borrow the painting for exhibitions of Sutherland's work were refused. In 1978, it was reported that Lady Churchill had destroyed the painting within a year of its arrival at Chartwell, by breaking it into pieces