What a time to enter parliament! After just ten days as the Member of Parliament for Chesterfield it feels like I’ve had a lifetime’s worth of experiences crammed into a week and a half.
When I wrote last week’s journal Gordon Brown had just resigned and negotiations between the parties were still ongoing and I was still getting my bearings in Westminster with that dazed look.
As you will all be aware the negotiations ended with a ‘ConDem’ coalition as Tory leader David Cameron and Lib Dem Nick Clegg frolicked on the Downing Street lawn like a couple of over excited schoolboys- power can be a heady cocktail.
As they rejoiced in their joint discovery of the joy of cuts, the Labour Party faced it’s own moment of truth, as MP’s and activists faced the fact of our defeat in the General election and looked forward to a leadership election where the party could (finally) have a debate over it’s future direction.
It sunk in for me when I returned from a Parliamentary briefing to find three voicemails from potential leadership contenders wanting to discuss ‘the future of the party’. The atmosphere is slightly surreal, Labour MP’s, who have just lost are in that moment of calm before the storm, apparently released from the burden of power and not yet in a state of righteous anger about the untold misery of the cuts to come.
Tory and Lib Dem MP’s face a different quandary, happy to finally assume the reins of power (in a limited way, due to the coalition) and yet still facing their own immortality as they attempt to build public support for the masochism strategy that at least half of them have just spent a month denouncing.
Only the public sector and Local Government workers who may now pay for the Lib Dem change of heart with their jobs are likely to be feeling less than chipper about the new reality that we face.
Into this confusing maelstrom was added a first appearance on Newsnight last Wednesday, which I attended at just a couple of hours notice to discuss the ‘New Politics’ with a Tory MP and a Tory Think tank wonk. I emerged outnumbered but happy as my ‘opponents’ were forced to admit that in fact there was nothing very new about the Tory Party right now and vowing to do better in the future.
As you can imagine, it was a pleasure to return to the relative calm of Chesterfield on Thursday evening, where I set about recruiting office staff and finding an office location in the town to run my constituency office from. Another pleasurable aside involved the Celebration party to mark the election victory in Chesterfield which was held at Chesterfield Labour Club last Saturday. Around 100 people packed into the limited confines of the club, and a great time was had by all.
Sunday was a groggy day that I seem to have come out the other side of, and now on Monday evening, I write this whilst on a train down to London to be officially sworn in as the Member of Parliament for Chesterfield, another proud week awaits!
