Part one of series of videos showing Labour star Laura Pidcock talking frankly about range of issue – starting with ‘that’ video and why she still doesn’t want to be friendly with Tory MPs

Laura Pidcock, talking to the SKWAWKBOX

Two years ago last weekend, the SKWAWKBOX published an exclusive interview with Labour rising star Laura Pidcock that dominated much of the political media for most of the summer.

Ms Pidcock, one of the 2017 general election’s new MPs, rocked the political Establishment by stating frankly that she had been elected to do the job of representing her constituents and that she had no interest in making friends with Tory MPs who were blighting the lives of people in her North-West Durham seat and beyond.

The reaction was prolonged and akin to poking a termites’ nest with a large, very sharp stick as commentators and ‘centrist’ politicians tried to justify their clubby relations with the Tories by attacking the outspoken MP. But many Tory MPs recognised someone who ‘gets it’.

Two years on, Laura Pidcock spoke again to the SKWAWKBOX at even more length and across a range of subjects, including Brexit, Parliament, ‘trigger’ selection contests, antisemitism and more. In this first video in the resulting exclusive series, she talks about:

that 2017 article and explains why she still has no interest in ‘fraternising’ with the Tory MPs attacking the people who rely on her

compares the treatment she and other new MPs receive from Parliament and Establishment media with an ‘abusive relationship’

the ‘mental discipline’ she maintains to resist attempts to assimilate her into the Establishment’s business-as-usual and the ‘unnatural’ environment imposed on MPs to force or tempt them into line

the honour of serving her constituents and the ‘degrading’ anguish they suffer under Tory attack that makes it unthinkable to ‘fraternise’ with them

She concludes that a parliamentary system in which MPs can only achieve change by ‘go[ing] to dinner’ or ‘buy[ing] a gin’ for MPs ideologically opposed to what matters is ‘fundamentally wrong’.

Laura Pidcock has been shortlisted for the Patchwork MP of the Year award. You can vote for her or your preferred choice here.

SKWAWKBOX view:

Labour and the country need many more MPs with Laura Pidcock’s working-class commitment and outlook and far fewer of the cosy, ‘clubbable’ types Parliament has in excess – which is why her 2017 comments triggered such an extreme and, yes, ‘abusive’ reaction.



Happily, she has stood firm.

Next: the ‘alienating’ Parliament that ‘stifles fundamental change’ obstructs Labour MPs who want to really change things for the sake of their constituents.

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