Liz Kendall likes a robust wine. “I like robust, that's right. If someone says, ‘oh it's really, you know, light and fruity’ I think, well what's the point of that?” It’s a hot evening in July and Liz Kendall and I are about to have dinner at Hawksmoor. After Conservative leadership candidate Andrea Leadsom’s jibe about her children giving her a “stake in the future”, we both felt the need for a good steak. Before it arrives we order a bottle of Pulenta “Gran” Malbec from Mendoza, Argentina. It’s robust.

The 45 year old MP for Leicester West stood against Jeremy Corbyn in the 2015 leadership election as the “modernising” candidate and lost badly, finishing last with only 4.5 per cent of the vote. When we meet it doesn’t seem like a great time to be a moderniser in the Labour party, or, for that matter, a woman. After being shouted at while campaigning for Remain in the EU referendum - “[people] don't feel [prosperity] in their pay packets, they don't feel it in their local schools” - she accepts that what was lacking from the referendum debate was an emotional argument. She said, “What has been our burning national reason to be in the EU? Well we ended up joining because we thought it would be good for the economy. But that is not quite as much of an essential reason.”

Until she was 16, Kendall wanted to go to dance school. She did ballet, modern dance, and tap dancing and held the aspiration until her mother asked her, “if you're not the best in your school how the hell are you going to do this and make a living out of it?” Kendall claims to have had “nothing to do with politics” at university. Her first job was at a professional building magazine. She was sent to trade exhibitions where, as a young woman, she found herself in some jeopardy. She also worked as a waiter in a golf club where she was regularly harassed: “I used to carry these massive trays of tea and scones, and a guy put his hand up my skirt and I went and complained to the boss. They told me to shut up and not say anything. This unfortunately, possibly, led to my not-great enthusiasm for golf clubs.” Later I ask if anything similar has happened in Westminster, but she says it hasn’t: “Never had my arse groped in the Palace of Westminster, you'll be glad to know.”

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Kendall tells me she read history at Cambridge “very badly”, but doesn’t deny getting a first. She focused on the history of political thought after a pep talk from a tutor who told her not to be defined by what men thought she was capable of achieving. Perhaps it’s that first from Cambridge that left her disappointed with Michael Gove's comments during the campaign. When asked to name any economists who backed Brexit, Gove said, “people in this country have had enough of experts”.

Kendall was not impressed. “‘No experts’, that was the worst thing Gove said. If you have experience and knowledge that you want to share with people because you believe it will make the world a better place, sorry we don't believe in anyone who has any knowledge and experience. Because somehow ‘experts’ is an insult rather than something we should be proud of.”

It's gutting that the Tories have had two female prime ministers.

Time for some expertly cooked steak. Kendall orders beetroot and hazelnut salad followed by the filet steak, medium rare. She’s amused to see me order the 900 gram porterhouse, and we move from the jeopardy of women in the workplace, to women in the Labour Party. “Nothing is impossible, but it is gutting that the Conservatives have a second female prime minister. It's gutting that they had two women prime ministers and we haven't. We've had Harriet Harman and Margaret Beckett as interim leaders but it is gutting and I think that the Labour party needs to take a long hard look at itself and about why that is the case.”

“I think there were quite extraordinary circumstances last time round, and the reason people didn't vote for me wasn't that I was a woman. It’s because they didn't agree with my analysis of why we lost and what we needed to do to win again. They didn't know me and they didn't trust that I had Labour’s best interests at it's heart. I wasn't even an official member of the shadow cabinet when I stood, I attended shadow cabinet. I hadn't been around for ages so I'm not surprised that people didn't know me, but when I was desperately trying to say why I thought we'd lost and what I think we needed to do to win again. For people to say that somehow that meant that I was a Tory. That was what's painful.”

People said that I was a Tory. That was painful.

Kendall says that she would have backed Angela Eagle: “She was so brave, she had the guts, she had the balls to do it. But Owen is absolutely determined, he is clever, passionate and I think he's got a great shot.” She respects Angela for standing “at an even more difficult time, I mean what happened last year compared to this was nothing, and I admire that. And she worked, she took a place in the cabinet, she never wanted to stand down, and also I really like her. During the whole of the last leadership election she was the only real one of any of the leader or deputy leader candidates who when she saw me gave me a hug, asked me how I was doing, [asked] was I okay. And actually that matters a great deal. She's a decent person, and I thought she had guts, she was a decent person to me, but then that's why I would have nominated her.”

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Kendall agrees that her preference was more personal than political: “I think people forget a lot of the time is its such, yes it's about ideals and principles and policies and raw brute politics. But it is also about people, and their relationships over the years. And I would say as well that is why I have no hesitation in backing Owen, because I worked with him in the shadow cabinet, I know, met, spent time with him a bit outside Westminster too, and he is a fighter. He's tough and he's passionate and there's no messing about with him and I think he will be one hell of a leader.”

There was a catastrophic failure of leadership on the EU campaign from Corbyn.

She’s not a fan of Jeremy Corbyn: “I thought there was a catastrophic failure of leadership on the EU campaign from Corbyn. I mean literally there were people, who had some of their worst ever door knocking sessions during the EU campaign, ever, and so many not knowing what our position was, or saying, all people, that we were knocking up, excuse the expression, people who we knew had voted Labour in the past, saying I don't know what you think. [Corbyn] could have been a brilliant sceptical campaigner for remain. I'm trying to be fair to my current leader. I would never expect him to go out and be a champion of all things European Union, I wouldn't expect that. But he could have made a stronger case.”

I make the mistake of suggesting that Nigel Farage cut through in the campaign because he didn’t live inside the Westminster Bubble. “I think this bubble stuff is crap. Do you have to knock on people's doors randomly, apart from when you choose to, or in the high street to get their vote? Go along to community meetings, invite people along to hear about planning estate? No you bloody don't, I do. And I do it because I want to, because it's my job. I do not live in a bubble. I speak to more people across different walks of life, I would bet than most people. And I tell you what, I'm going to defend it, because look at what’s happening in the states here, and Donald Trump, so the Republicans for years and years and years, were massively critical of the government, of Washington, of the tea party movement, they pandered, pandered, pandered. And Trump is the bastard child of the tea party, you reap what you sow, if you criticise everybody in a bubble from not understanding, are you surprised when something like that happens. So I am going to defend politicians for not living in a bubble.”

This “Westminster bubble” stuff is crap. I do not live in a bubble.

Keen to stay outside the bubble Liz Kendall is active on Twitter: “Oh it's definitely me, I wouldn't let anybody touch that. In opposition all you have are your words.” She acknowledges that social media is not always an easy place for a modernising Labour MP: “I believe there is a reason for that hostility which is that we failed to make difficult arguments about the economy, welfare, immigration, public services for years. And then, when you start to try and make them again, you know? It comes as a shock… People voted for Jeremy [because] we didn't have anything new or different, or inspiring. And people are in politics not because they want to be managers but because they want to be inspired and the big problem that... when you've got an economy where more and more and more money goes to those at the top, most people don't see any of the profits because it's globalised and because of the technology they are angry, and people want to see a change and we, the modernisers utterly failed to modernise."

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"Number one, and number two people were angry in our own party and within the country and you can't just tell them, no no no, we'll sort it out, it doesn't work. So I think what's happened in the country and in our party is very similar, we see it in the States and right across the world. And the point is it's worse for the centre left, because we're supposed to be for ordinary people. And that's why they're more angry with us, you know. That is the big problem for every centre left party, it is the economy isn't working for most people and they're angry about immigration. The two are related and if they left doesn't provide the answers the right will, but they will be wrong, they won't be the answers that work in my view.”

After she recently posed on top of a tank in an army outfit, a friend has asked to enquire of Liz Kendall if she is single. She says it’s “None of his business… because I'm glad he liked me on the tank but I avoid talking about my private life at all costs.” I then ask her about her what the most important thing for Labour is right now and she answers bluntly: “The most important thing is, god bless him but we need not to have Jeremy Corbyn… badly.”

I’m not going to leave my party. I am not going to give up my party to people who do not represent what we believe.

If Jeremy Corbyn wins again, will she split? “I'm not going to leave my party… I am not going to give up my party to people who do not represent what we believe…” She denies having spoken to anyone about a split, and she’s optimistic about Owen Smith’s chances. “There are some people who have changed their mind. Some who voted for Corbyn before who thought he was a winner who's massively won over the labour party, who can be persuaded... I have never, not once in my career, not in my professional life, quit something because it was tough.” Of splitting she rejects the suggestion that it’s even being contemplated: ”I think there are people outside the party who are Labour supporters who think this might be the only option but I am telling you there is not, I've not had that conversation with any member, [or] labour MP about this.”

If Jeremy Corbyn gets back in we will be a rump of a party.

I press the issue, and she’s adamant: “You know, I lived through - albeit being young - the SDP and the Lib Dems and the split, and we live in a first-past-the-post electoral system and we're not in [proportional representation]… I think that's why those on the far left have not set up their own party, they want to take us over and I think the reality of this, the people who think that a split is a simple way to electoral victory are deluded… You are right to propose a terrible conundrum which is if Jeremy Corbyn gets back in, and that makes us, as I believe it will, dead as a party, we will not win. We will lose seats, we will be a rump of a party.”

I belatedly notice that she is wearing a rather smart watch, so I ask her about it: “I have got a vintage Omega 1949 watch I love… It was a present that I got for my birthday. This year. I hate weedy thin delicate women's watches, gets on my nerves, I like big men's watches. I absolutely adore it. This was the amazing thing about the gift. I think it's really hard to buy somebody a watch. It's really really hard, especially if a person says they want a man's vintage watch, I think it's quite a hard present to buy. But, you know, he nailed it, so it's good.” Liz then admits to owning a collection of watches including two Omegas: “I love an Omega. I think they're great watches.” I resist the urge to pry any further into who exactly “he” is, but I get the suspicion that for all the struggles of her party, at least Liz Kendall now has some time to enjoy a private life.

Rupert Myers and Liz Kendall dined at Hawksmoor, W1J 0AD