As excitable new MPs are escorted around comfy offices in Portcullis House, we ‘departing members’, as we’re known, are guided around small, unglamorous rooms in Richmond House, the scruffier Westminster neighbour, to be told about the winding-up period. I’m the only Labour MP here. I hug one of my favourite Tories and swap loser anecdotes with another former MP. At least the pain of losing is softened by my party’s win.
A woman pointed at me and shrieked: ‘Everything’s awful!
It’s time to leave parliament. The staff of an MP friend carry things I don’t want to risk putting in the removals van. I take a different route from my office, lowering the chance of bumping into newbies. They tend to rush up to me and say: ‘You helped me so much in my campaign – so sorry you’re going’. It’s very kind, but it’s getting tiring saying: ‘Don’t worry about me, new chapter, I’m so proud of you, let me know how I can help’. Anyway, I have momentarily forgotten almost all their names. I hand over my parliamentary security pass, car park pass and room key and drive off the estate for the last time, stopping to thank the police for protecting me for nine years. I am certain they don’t know who I am.
My election diary – formerly known as my tentatively-preparing-for-government-but-without-assuming-anything notebook – is filled with anecdotes from the campaign trail in Bristol Central. One canvassing session from the 156 I took part in stands out. A woman pointed at me and shrieked: ‘Everything’s awful! It’s all broken! And you don’t know how to fix it!’. I tried to tell her about our plan. It didn’t help. I’m pretty sure Labour will make a difference, but, colleagues: it’s over to you now. I’ll join the nation, watching nervously. Good luck! You’ll need it.
To keep me sane during the campaign, I operated a three-buckets system. Bucket one contained things I couldn’t control (it was big). Bucket two was things I could do something about (tiny, more of a shot glass). Bucket three was things I needed to sort out but couldn’t until after the election (it was huge). Unfortunately for me, the first bucket contained a secret weapon for my competitors in Bristol. The unshakeable Labour poll lead allowed my rivals to say: ‘Labour will win anyway, so you can vote for us!’. There were also stories in the press about me going to the House of Lords, which was news to me. Anyway, now I have time to get on with the contents of Bucket three.
One of the painful things about losing is what it means for my wonderful team. The staff have already taken my advice and got their CVs ready and emailed them off before the newbies even know what their email addresses are. As for me, I’ve accepted that defeat is a part of democracy.
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