This is what happens next to a Tory MP like me

(Picture: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

Labour MP Carolyn Harris hugged me – that’s no big deal, she’s a friend and a very huggy person.  

But everyone forgets the personal impact of a general election MPs. There will be colleagues lost, new ones will come in, some of us will come back, others will not. There is the massive uncertainty of whether I will be in the former or the latter category.

The flip of that is that we will all lose weight. Some from stress, some from pavement pounding, some from forsaking alcohol for the duration of the campaign.

I usually lose a stone, I hope to do so this time, but who knows whether the temptation of endless not-so-skinny lattes just to keep the caffeine intake up will be the undoing of my diet ambitions.

What does it really mean for MPs? 

Well first there is the vital week of ‘wash up’. That is crucially important and many of us will have hopes that the legislation we have worked so hard to scrutinise and amend during its passage to date will make it on to the statute book before Parliament is dissolved.

Just last week I was in the chamber trying to improve and amend the Criminal Justice Bill – it has not yet concluded its Commons stages though, so I suspect that is now gone.

It has long been said the PM regards his ambition of a smoke-free Britain, and freeing future young people from the tyranny of a nicotine addiction as his ‘legacy’.

I do not know if that is the case, and I suspect it is also not far enough progressed through its parliamentary stages to make it next week. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced a General Election on July 4th 2024 (Picture: James Veysey/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

That is a great pity, and as someone who recognises the evils of nicotine I have long been a supporter of his proposals.

There are arguments in favour and against the timing. Who wants a summer election? Well, me for one. I hated the December election, the short days, the rain and the cold. 

I remember the day we turned blue from the cold, back in the 2019 campaign, and then reminiscing with fondness the following week when we were both blue with cold and soaked to the skin.

Are we all ready? No, of course not. I don’t appear to have my 72 hours leaflet – which all MPs should have ready to post the minute an election is called – back from the printers, which is going to make my launch this weekend a little challenging. 

I am also not ready to give up. There is a lot of fight left in me, not least in the work I have done since the start of 2020 championing women and those with all the protected characteristics. 

I had my epiphany moment at an Elton John Aids Foundation event last year. I am not yet done, and much like Bill Nighy in Love Actually, I identified what I loved that night. 

I love standing up for the people who have no voice, who have few champions, whether it is the wonderful people in my constituency; the menopausal women overlooked at work and forced out of employment; the young people struggling to navigate a world where easy access to pornography has meant their view of relationships has perhaps been skewed forever. And so many more. 

Across Parliament there will be 649 others just like me, who know they have worked hard, given it their all, and are now looking to the future with uncertainty. There are of course those who are looking forward to retirement, or new challenges, and I will miss them all, even if we have disagreed politically.

This week we saw Parliament at its best, when it came together to apologise for wrongs done to those infected with HIV and hepatitis C as a result of receiving contaminated blood products. 

We also saw Parliament welcome back our own Craig Mackinlay, who was struck down with sepsis at the end of last year and has come back today, with his amazing bionic limbs.

Parliament was at its best welcoming back the ‘bionic’ MP, Craig Mackinlay (Picture: PRU/AFP via Getty Images)

I very much hope he does come back after the election, as Parliament’s own bionic MP. The welcome he got ahead of PMQs moved me almost to tears; what a brave man, and what a community and House we are when we focus on the more in common that we actually do have. 

This Parliament, like the last, we have lost one of our own, with the horrendous murder of Sir David Amess. We have seen threats to MPs as never before, attacks on offices and homes, and evil trolling of our family members. 

I hope all candidates stay safe, that political opponents make the debate political not personal, and that we can all remember people like Jo Cox and David Amess, and honour their legacy by just being a bit better.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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