I often joke that when I became an MP in 2019, after being a charity chief executive, I went from saint to sinner in the mind of the public.
When you work for a charity, people assume you’re one of the good guys: honest, principled, in it for the right reasons. Too often politicians are seen as the opposite: dishonest, unprincipled, in it for themselves – and probably fiddling their expenses.
Both stereotypes are wrong, yet they persist. I am regularly asked why I made the switch – not least by friends and family members, who know politics matters but wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.
It is a question that I know will be asked more regularly after the senseless killing of Sir David Amess. Here was a kind, big-hearted man with a permanent smile, going about the business of serving the community he loved.
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